


Slave

by Airiamurillo



Category: Hollywood Undead (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Falling In Love, Gangs, Italian Mafia, Kidnapping, M/M, Physical Abuse, Slaves, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-01-07 19:51:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 72,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12239541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Airiamurillo/pseuds/Airiamurillo
Summary: One night, two men sneak into a house with the plans of getting the Italian mafia's items back. They managed to get more than what they bargained for when they noticed something far more valuable in the house. They know that taking this more valuable thing will hurt the betrayer more but there is more to the truth than meets the eye. Will the risk be worth taking or will it cause more trouble than it's worth?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU where I have made the guys the following ages in 2010
> 
> J3T: 35
> 
> J-dog: 34
> 
> Charlie scene: 32
> 
> Funny Man: 32
> 
> Aron: 36
> 
> Danny 24
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

George p.o.v  
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Jorel asks me as we slip our masks down to cover our faces. Someone betrayed us in a big way and now it’s time to get our revenge and collect some items which could be sold on to cover the losses that we have suffered due to the betrayal. “Yeah, I’m sure this is the one. It’s where I kept picking the bastard up from every day,” I tell Jorel as I slung my backpack onto my back. It had all the supplies we need and some extras just in case there is something there that we aren’t expecting to be in the house. I know very little about his house and what lies within it but we are hoping to at least score something while we are here. I doubt this will be a wasted mission. “Fine, let’s do this our usual way then,” Jorel says and we make our way to the back of the house.

Robberies happen so often here that the neighbours here stop paying attention as several houses on this block are regular targets for thieves like us who constantly get away with it. Jorel skilfully picks the lock as I stand on look out just in case there is someone out here about to call 911 on us. No one does and we are in the kitchen/dining room straight away where some of the stolen goods are lying on the table. “Right, let’s quietly start here because I don’t know if that kid he kept making me promise not to hurt is here,” I whisper to Jorel as it is 3 in the morning so if that kid is here, hopefully he is sleeping. Our van is right at the back-yard gate so we can take some of the larger items straight away without taking up too much time.   
We are getting a lot of the items that were stolen back so we can sell them to the rightful owners to cover the losses because that is how our gang must work for now until we get back on our feet. Now we need to quietly walk through the house to find some other items. Then Jorel who is walking ahead of me stops. I stop before I walk into him and I look at him. “Can you hear that? Someone is here and I think they are awake,” Jorel says and I listen for a few minutes and I could hear a television playing in the living room but it was kinda of quiet so I could just about hear it. “I have chloroform just in case,” I whisper back and we go and investigate what could be in the living room.

I think we have hit the jackpot. There lying on the couch out for the count was who I hoped to be this Danny kid. He didn’t look anything like I was expecting but then again, I was expecting Aron to have an 8-year-old by the way that he talked about him.   
This kid did look innocent for what Aron has done around him. “This is the jackpot, if we take the kid then it would really hit Aron where it hurts,” I tell Jorel keeping my voice down as to not wake the sleeping kid up just in case he would raise the alarm. “Right well, let’s check the upstairs out first and make Danny the last thing we grab,” Jorel says and I agree with him. It would be very suspicious if we just carried him out of the house and left him in the van while we grab more items we know Aron has that he shouldn’t. We haven’t woken the kid up so far which is good. 

“Right, you know the drill. We might need him awake for this bit though,” I tell Jorel once we were finished looting the upstairs. I have never used Chloroform on anyone who was already asleep but Jorel is a master in this so he will make sure the kid is under and I will carry him out of the house. “It’s gonna take five minutes to knock him out but he would probably wake up as soon as he feels his mouth and nose are covered because it will be instinct to fight for survival because the body thinks it’s being suffocated,” Jorel says as he prepares the right dosage for the kid lying in front of us. “Yeah, fair enough. Want me to swipe anything else while you do that?” I ask him, because a quick glance around the room showed promise for the last couple of stolen items we haven’t found so far.

“Yeah go on, take the kids phone and laptop as well as the rest of the stolen stuff in here,” Jorel says and he lets me take those things and shove them into the van before he does attempt to knock Danny out because it would be very strange for him to see us robbing him. He could still panic and call 911 on us. “Alright kiddo, light’s out time,” Jorel says and clamps the cloth over the kids mouth and nose which wakes him up a lot quicker than I was expecting. “It’s gonna be just fine kiddo. Relax and count backwards from 100 in your head,” Jorel says and I knew the kid wasn’t going to count but he started calming down. Jorel shifts so that he is behind Danny and he could support him when he eventually falls unconscious.

Five minutes later we let out a sigh of relief as the kid goes limp against Jorel. “That was close, now let’s get out of here before someone suspects us. We have been here for 2 hours now and Aron might come back,” Jorel tells me and I nod. I pick up the kid gently in my arms and carried him out to the van where he would be in with us at the front so Jorel could monitor him while I drive us back to the hideout. He could have a nasty reaction to the chloroform so he will need monitoring carefully until he comes around. No one paid attention to anything going on here and I didn’t spot any cameras so that is a win-win for us until Aron comes home and finds Danny gone along with a few other things. 

We did make it look like he had moved out suddenly by the way we took things and we made sure to take some of Danny’s clothes and his personal items so it didn’t look like a straight up kidnapping which is what it actually is. “Are we really doing our first kidnap for personal benefit?” Jorel asks me as I drive back to the hideout. “Yes, we could have Danny doing little jobs around the house and make him one of us if it bothers you that much but we couldn’t leave him there. Aron also needs to feel the pain and frustration he has left us in,” I tell Jorel who nods before he checks Danny’s pulse and breathing for the first time since the kid was knocked out. “I swear Aron sold us this kid as an actual kid who couldn’t take care of himself,” Jorel says after a minute.

Danny’s vitals are fine. “Yeah Aron made himself sound like he was taking care of an eight-year-old child not someone who seems to be about twenty-three or twenty-four,” I reply. We need to get to know this kid a bit when he wakes up later to find out exactly why Aron thinks he should be talking about Danny this way. “Maybe he has some form of additional needs or something? I don’t see why else he would make us believe this one is eight,” Jorel tells me as I get onto the freeway and we are nearly at the hideout. “Yeah, but he would say Danny is eight to make us back off him because he knows we don’t hurt kids. I think Danny doesn’t have any form of additional needs but we shall see,” I reply.

I called Jordon to make sure that the spare room we have would be suitable for someone to sleep in by the time we got back and I didn’t tell him anything else. I just told him to he would find out soon when we got home. Jordon and Dylan are the only ones who don’t know of Danny’s existence because Aron only ever told me and Jorel. Matt knew because he eavesdropped one day but Aron found out and it ended very badly for Matt. “How long before kid wakes up?” I ask Jorel as I get onto our street about five minutes later. “Probably a couple more hours at least but he’s doing well so far,” Jorel replies after he checked Danny’s vitals again. It was just his pulse and breathing but they are important. We don’t particularly want the kid to die on us.

“Right, the goods will go back to the Italian Mafia tomorrow or the day after I gotta call Mario tomorrow to let him know we recovered them but for now we just keep them locked up and focus on the kid,” I tell Jorel. He nods and waits for me to walk to his side before he gets out as the kid fell sideways and I had to catch him so I could carry him into the house he will be living in. We converted an old warehouse into a fully functional 6 bedroom, 4 bathroom house complete with modern kitchen and living room. We recently got a gym and a study room too so we could keep fit and keep smart. We have managed to create a decent life for ourselves but if we didn’t act now with Aron then we could have easily lost all of this.

I carried Danny into the spare room and he was still pretty much out of it. We took the blanket he had when we found him so I covered him up to his waist with that to make him hopefully a little calmer when he does come round. I just realized he never had a shirt on when he fell asleep so he is probably going to be a little cold. “Leave the shirt off for now, it would make it weirder for him and it’s easier for me to monitor his breathing when I can easily see his chest rise and fall,” Jorel says when I grabbed one of the t-shirts from the closet which was in here. “Yeah, fair enough. Just didn’t want him to wake up and whinge that he is cold because the heating here doesn’t work,” I tell him and I hand him the t-shirt anyway just in case.

“Give me a call when he starts waking up Jorel, I am going to explain to the others why we are back up to five now. I’m thinking Danny could be our little slave until he becomes a fully-fledged part of the gang,” I tell him. I have no clue what we will get Danny to do yet but I am sure that we will figure it out. “Yeah, okay George. Have fun,” he tells me and waves as I leave the room to explain to Jordon and Dylan why we have the enemy’s precious in our house now. “So, you gonna explain the brown-haired dude to us or not?” Jordon asks when he sees me as I entered the living room. “He was in Aron’s house when we raided it so we took him. I believe that Danny is quite important to Aron so this is gonna hit him where it hurts. Danny’s going to be working for us for a little while until he proves himself to be worthy of the entitlement to be part of our way of life,” I tell him.

“Where is he now?” Dylan asks me as he looks around expecting Danny to appear behind me but he didn’t because Danny is still unconscious upstairs. “He is in the spare room right now because to get Danny out of the house we did have to use the chloroform that I brought with me. I don’t think he was going to come willingly when he suddenly wakes up and sees that two people in masks are robbing his house,” I tell them. I don’t know why I keep using this kid’s name so much. I am only assuming his name is Danny because I am assuming Aron would want to keep his precious close by. We did grab a wallet that could be Danny’s though. I decide to have a snoop through it and then we’ll make sure Danny has it back at some point after he has woken up. I did find some identification in there so we are all good.

I found his current driver’s license. I can see why Aron calls him a kid. Danny is so much younger compared with the rest of us. We are all in the early to mid-thirties and Danny is only 24 years old currently. His birthday is coming up in a few months so when November 21st rolls around the kid will be 25 but he is quite young to be exposed to as much as he has and even now we don’t know how long he has been with Aron but he could have been with him for at least ten years maybe more or maybe less. “Yeah, I’d freak out if there were two men robbing my house if I am honest. I would hit them if they asked me politely to come with them too,” Dylan says. At least they seem to accept Danny being around this far.

“I don’t know if it would have been polite exactly and we wouldn’t even know what Danny’s response would have been. He was sleeping when we found him but we knocked him out in case he was going to freak out and he was only awake for like five minutes,” I tell them. Dylan smiled when he saw the ID which belonged to Danny. “I think I mentored him in high school so having him settle shouldn’t be much of a problem,” he tells me and I raised an eyebrow at him. I think there was more to it than that but I am not going to force the information out of him if he isn’t going to tell me. “How have we not lost the side of the Italian Mafia yet? Shouldn’t we all be dead by now because of what Aron’s done?” Jordon asks while I wait for Jorel to shout that Danny was coming round from the chloroform.

“We aren’t dead yet because we have the son of the leader as our second in command. He had to swear on his life that we could return the goods to him to spare our lives,” I tell them, remembering how angry Jorel’s father was when he discovered that Aron had stolen the stuff the was getting from his allies. We are going to be paid quite a bit as a reward for returning those items for him. “That does make us very lucky people and Aron could still could get in trouble and possibly killed for what he has done and Danny could have been caught in the crossfire,” Jordon says and I had to think for a minute. Danny would have been killed if Aron was found in that house because the Italian Mafia always leave no witnesses behind when they kill.

“I think Aron would have probably left Danny on his own if he knew the Italian Mafia was after him,” Dylan says. If Aron did to Danny what he did to Matt then there was every possibility that Danny would be abandoned while the Mafia look for Aron. It’s always going to be that way with everyone he meets. Aron is just a very selfish person and always put’s himself above others. “Yeah and I’d feel sorry for the kid if he knew nothing about the world his friend lives in and then suddenly some scary mother fuckers show up to kill him,” I tell them. Then I just about hear Jorel shouting my name from the spare room upstairs. It’s been at least a few hours since Danny was knocked out so I am glad he should be starting to wake up now.

I walk up the stairs and to the spare room where Jorel had his hands on Danny’s shoulders to keep him down on the bed. “He’s been like this for about five minutes now. He’s been freaking out for some reason though. It’s like he fears something,” Jorel says and I go behind Danny’s head and place my hands on the kid’s shoulders instead. “I’m not surprised Jorel, last thing he remembers is two masked guys at his house,” I tell him and he shakes his head at me. “No, I don’t think it’s that. Most people we have done this with are groggy as all hell until they open their eyes. No one I have done this with has freaked out like this,” he tells me. I can’t really argue with that, he is the expert on this after all.

“Come on kiddo, open those eyes for us,” I tell him, keeping my voice in a tone that should relate to being kept calm and I didn’t want to be the one to scare the poor kid anymore. Danny started to try and open his eyes which was good. It was showing me that he could hear what we were saying and he was awake-ish. Tonight, has been the weirdest night off our lives since Matt’s disappearance a couple of years ago. I personally believe that he was killed and it’s a cover up but nobody has been found this far so I must accept he might have just left us.

~Danny p.o.v~  
Oh no, I left the Television on as I fell asleep again. My ass is so going to get handed to me as soon as he gets home. Maybe he is home and he’s calling my name. Wait a second, his voice is different to that one and I have never heard the names that are being mentioned here. All I heard was the name George and they kept calling me kid, then I heard a different voice say Jorel so I am guessing the first guy’s name is Jorel and the second one is George. Someone had their hands on my shoulders, probably to keep me down so I don’t swing at them. Now, what’s the last thing I remember. Oh yeah two masked dudes in the house and one of them put something on my face, it smelled sweet but I got sleepy and that was the last thing.

“Come on kiddo, open those eyes for us,” I assume George tells me. I guess I have to comply or they will hit me like he does. I start trying to open my eyes but it was quite hard at first. I think it took a few minutes before I did open my eyes and I was met with a pair of concerned blue eyes right above my face which made me let out a fearful squeak and I tried to hide but he was keeping me in one place on my back. “Danny, right?” the guy asks me, not even bothering to call me Daniel like everyone else does. I fearfully nod my head. I didn’t wanna say anything in case I fucked it all up. “It’s okay Danny, no one here is gonna hurt you. You’re just going to be working for us from now on not Aron okay?” George says and slowly takes his hands off my shoulders. I took a few deep breaths and I look to the other guy.

He seemed to be more worried about me then about to hit me so I try and calm down. “Okay Masters, I am at your service for as long as you require me,” I say, wanting to be good and not earn myself a beating. I was sitting up now and looking down at my feet which still didn’t have shoes on since they took me while I was sleeping. They didn’t say anything after I called them both Master and I feared that I had massively screwed everything up right there and then. Then I saw as the other guy moved towards me with his hands up like he wasn’t going to hurt me. “You don’t need to call us Master Danny, just call us by the names we tell you too,” Jorel tells me and I nod at him, too scared to say anything else.

“Anyway, do you want something to eat? I know it’s 6 am right now and most of us might go to bed now but we have to look after you,” George asks me and I don’t think they mean anything sinister by it so I could trust them not to poison me. “Yes please,” I say and I am proud of myself for not stuttering while I was talking to him. “Alright then, come with me,” he says and he stands up and holds his hand out for me. I take it and he pulls me up to my feet. I follow him as he takes me to the kitchen which had no other people in it. I don’t know why at 6 am I thought there would be other people in here, I don’t even know if it is just Jorel and George in this big warehouse. “You’ll probably meet the others a bit later on. I think they have gone to bed,” Jorel says as he followed us into the room and went to the phone before walking out again.

I didn’t even realise I was comfortable shirtless around them until now either. All though my scars and bruising is on display right now. They haven’t asked about it yet either but I am probably not going to tell them yet, I barely know them so why would I talk about something like that? “How many others live here? This is a big house,” I ask him. George handed me my toasted waffle and some syrup with a smile. “Well there is Jorel and I, then there is Dylan and Jordon. Now there is you too,” he says and I give him a small smile before I take a bite of the waffle. So, I have met two out of four already, that’s good to know. “Are the others as nice as you?” I ask, feeling curious because it isn’t every day that your captors are nice to you like this.

“I guess so. I mean I wouldn’t exactly call myself nice to be honest with you Danny. I have done a lot of nasty things to a lot of people,” he tells me. I guess that is the nature of the job he has to do but I am going to be a bit more open minded to them because they are being nice to me right now. Obviously, I knew that they are part of a gang because that’s what Aron told me. He told me that he was in a group of people and that they hurt others and do jobs for certain people. I was still eating my waffle and George was watching the door that Jorel had gone through. I think he was waiting for him to come back. I had just finished my waffle when Jorel came back and put the phone back from where he took it. “They said to meet at Kieran’s warehouse at 3pm today to return those goods,” Jorel tells George knowing I was in the room. 

“Cool, I’ll take the newbie with me,” George says, pointing at me as I go to wash the plate which had some syrup left on it from my waffle. “Me, are you sure I am worthy of that?” I ask, the stutter nearly making an appearance but I did quite well in hiding it.   
“Yes, you just need to stay by my side and answer the questions he asks you and you will quickly prove yourself to us,” George says. I nod, I have to do as they say, right? I mean after all they are my captors and I am the one they kidnapped tonight even though now it’s early morning. “Okay, I’ll do exactly as you tell me too,” I say and he put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry Danny I am sure it will all go fine later. Now, we are going to bed. You don’t have to if you are not tired, feel free to roam the house but leave the other bedrooms alone. They aren’t exactly morning people,” George tells me.

“Okay, I’ll try not to,” I reply and then they leave me to my own devices. They were pretty relaxed but I knew the doors are locked so I couldn’t escape, not that I want to. I know he has basically given me the freedom to roam around and do as I please until they all wake up but I don’t really want to in case I managed to piss one of them off and then the beatings will start all over again. The only thing I really feel comfortable with doing right now is going to find that bedroom which I guess is mine and go back to sleep for a little while. I quietly walk up the stairs and find the only door which is open that wasn’t a bathroom was the bedroom I woke up in so I walk in there and crawl under the covers.

I don’t know if I am ready to back to sleep yet. I have had a pretty decent sleep leading up to this point so I might just lie here and see what happens. My phone and wallet are on the bed which is odd to me, I didn’t think kidnappers cared for that sort of thing but everything about this is odd so I guess I just have to deal with it. I saw my laptop on the desk and I felt too lazy to walk over to it. I don’t have Aron’s number on my phone do I? The last thing I need right now is for him to call me and freak out. If he ever sees me again then he will most likely kill me on sight for even leaving without his permission. Maybe these guys will protect me from him once I get the confidence to tell them what I have been through.

I shouldn’t let these thoughts of Aron get to me like they are trying to do. If I have to cry I am going to make sure that it is quiet so I don’t wake up the others. They have been up all night I am guessing so they are going to need some sleep. I felt the tears roll down my face without me even bothering to stop them. I was just glad that I wasn’t loudly sobbing. I grab the pillow that my head wasn’t resting on and hold it close to my chest as I try and let sleep take me, even if it is just for a little while. The tears kept falling thick and fast and I buried my head into the pillow just as sleep finally came to claim me for the rest of the morning until someone needs to wake me up for the job.


	2. Chapter 1

~A few hours later~ Danny p.o.v

"Are you sure he's breathing Jorel?" I hear someone ask as I wake up. My eyes felt weird from falling asleep while crying. I didn't recognise the new voice in the room and I certainly didn't feel like moving. "Yeah, I can see his chest moving. Plus, he would not have that skin tone if he was dead," I hear Jorel tell the new guy and then I felt someone's slightly cold finger touch my cheek. I resisted reacting to it in case something happened. "Also, he's skin's warm probably from having his head buried in the pillow for a while," Jorel adds once he was satisfied that I am alive. "Okay so if he is alive then shouldn't we wake him up. It's 11 am and George wants to prep him for later," the other guy tells Jorel who I couldn't really see cause my face is still mostly stuffed into a pillow.

"Yeah, I'm surprised he isn't awake already but he seems to be a deep sleeper," Jorel says and then I feel him shake my shoulder gently. "Danny, wake up," Jorel says and I roll over and rub my eyes before opening them to see Jorel and the new guy. I was a bit wary of the other male although he had a baby face which was very weird to me. They were a bit concerned about my face because it looked like I had been crying which is what happened last night. "Danny, this is Jordon. Don't worry, he won't bite much," Jorel says and Jordon sits down next to me on the bed. "Are you really that afraid of us?" Jordon asks me when he saw up close that I had been crying. "No, you guys have been nice to me. Why would I be afraid of you?" I ask Jordon.

"You've been crying, so I assume something is wrong," Jordon says and I felt safe around them which is something I haven't really experienced before now. I can't tell them yet, I don't trust them that much. "I'm okay honestly. Just last night was a bit much to be honest," I tell them, fully aware that I was lying to both of their faces. I am not sure that they know I am lying to them. Jorel hugged me gently and I hugged him back. "Right, time for some lunch and then George is going to brief you on the job you have to do with him today. Don't worry it's gonna be a piece of cake," Jorel says and I smile at him. He meant that it was going to be easy and I doubt I am going to get cake out of it.

"Okay, I should wash my face first though," I tell him and Jordon smiles at me. He patted my shoulder and then they both let me get off the bed. "Okay, I'll tell George you'll be a few minutes," Jordon says and they both leave the room while I am left to find a bathroom. I don't see a door to indicate that I have an en-suite bathroom in here so there should be one on this floor at least I saw one last night. I quickly found the door which led to one bathroom but I think I saw two downstairs. I wash my face quickly and keep glancing in the mirror until I am confident that it doesn't look like I have been crying anymore. Hopefully no one else knows that I cried last night, I don't think that they would tell the others unless they asked me about it.

"Hey Danny, did you have a good look around this morning before going back to bed?" George asks me when he sees me and I just shake my head. "I didn't have a look around. I just went straight back to bed," I tell him, being truthful. There was a grilled cheese sandwich placed in front of me. "We'll have to give you the house tour when you've finished eating," George says, not sounding the least bit mad that I didn't do what he suggested I do earlier this morning. I took a bit of the sandwich and nodded. At least if they give me a tour of the place then I will know which rooms could potentially be out of bounds to me and which ones I would be able to go into anytime because I am not exactly sure on my position here.

Then I got a tour of the house. George said that they were going to let me go into almost every room in the house which is pretty lenient to be fair. I am going to be doing little things around the house for them in between the gang jobs that they want me to do. I am told that when I meet the Italian Mafia I am to wear a mask which is gold with paint splatters and to call them by the different names. I am getting the nickname Golden Beast because of my mask colour and George is called Johnny 3 Tears when we are doing gang related activities. I will learn the other's names when it is relevant for me to learn them. Because today I am going out with George on my first gang related mission I have to learn his now.

"Danny feel free to relax before we have to go," George tells me as we get back to the living room which is where the tour started about half an hour ago. I didn't go into the other's rooms but I now know which bedrooms are which and they said they were redecorating one for me which again makes this whole thing weird. Yesterday I wasn't allowed out of my room for hours and starved because in his eyes I did something wrong. Now I am being treated like I am actually worth something to people. What fucking drugs am I currently taking? I bet I am going to wake up and be back in that house with more bruises than ever. He might even kill me this time, he must be really mad at me.

"What ya thinking about Danny?" Dylan asks me and I nearly jumped off the couch. "Nothing," I tell him and he rolls his eyes. "You were dude, I called your name three times before you listened to me," he says and I look down. He shuffles up the couch so he is sitting next to me. "It's not a bad thing Danny, for as long as I have known you, you have been thinking up incredible things," he tells me and I sigh. I am a different person than when he knew me. That will become painfully clear to him when they eventually find out what I have been through. "I know but what if it happens and I need to go? I can't mess anything up here," I tell him. I have always been able to talk to Dylan, I don't know why but I feel safer when I talk to him then I do anyone I have met so far. I know he is about 8 years older than me so he has those years more experience than I do at life.

"You're not gonna mess up, George will make sure you a ready to go about ten minutes before you need to leave and we'll probably been chatting away so you might not space out as much," he tells me. Back when he was tutoring me in high school, he would have this very same calm voice when he spoke to me. I wasn't being abused back then but I had severe anxiety which I still have now and maybe over the years it has gotten worse. "Okay but you do know if it goes bad I am blaming you right?" I ask him, trying to make light of it like I usually do when he was being my mentor. "Of course," he says and George walks up to us. "We have about ten minutes Dan," he says and I nod.

"Okay, I'll quickly get dressed and come back. Do you have any shoes that might fit me?" I ask him. I didn't see anything else belonging to me when we were touring the house and he showed me my room. I have a closet with some clothes that fit me in it. "Yeah, we should do, we have a few different shoe sizes in the closet just in case," he says and I hurry to get changed. No one has asked about the cuts and bruises on my skin and I thought they would have by now. I found an outfit easily but the shoes took me longer because I had to find my size and my typical style in the mountain of shoes they have. I got dressed in five minutes and then took two minutes to sort my hair out.

I don't know if they want me to wear anything specific with my mask but I am going to do exactly as George tells me to. He comes to get me and we walk to the van which I was taken in last night. It didn't feel weird actually being awake in it with a lot of stolen goods in the back which we are returning to the Italian Mafia and our masks are in the glove box and we will pull over a minute away from the location to put the masks on. We won't speed to get there because we don't need the police attention on us right now. I have been told that we have thousands of dollars' worth of goods in the back of the van so it's not a good idea to attracted that attention right now. I am not the one driving so if anything happens I can safely blame George.

"Right masks on now Danny, you know what to call me when you see the Mafia guy?" George asks as we pull into the lay by a minute away from the location. "Yep Johnny, I got it," I tell him. I know the Mafia guy is called Miles but he probably wants to be called Mr Decker or something. George smiled at me so I had gotten it right and I wasn't messing up. "Very good Golden Beast you may be a promising student," he tells me and I smiled behind my mask. He didn't have his on when he smiled. He put my hood up and sorted my hair out so it looked okay. "We might have to dye your hair soon and for today pull the sleeves down and hold them to hide those tats. Aron would know by now the stuff is gone and so are you so he is going to start looking," he tells me and I nod and do as I am told.

"I don't want to go back to him," I admit to George as we start the short trip to meet the mafia. I knew my little statement just shocked him and there wasn't really much time to talk even though we were ten minutes early. "Why's that then Danny?" he asks me and I shrug. "I didn't like it there. You kidnapped me and I already like my life better than it was there. I wasn't allowed as much freedom as you have already given me because he always wanted control over my movements so gangs wouldn't get me," I tell him, partially twisting the truth because I am not completely ready to tell him how I really got treated there. I had left George speechless with my admission I could tell that by the look in his eyes.

"Yeah I always wondered why Aron had you because he was a real douchebag while he was with us. I don't think he has actually hurt anyone but one of our original members has been missing for a few years," he tells me. I think I heard about that one because Aron was quite angry that people were blaming him for Matthew's disappearance and the cops came around a few times to talk to him and only found me. They were concerned about me too when they came around but he would always assure them it was because I had a condition where I would fall quite a lot which was total bullshit. "His little excuse for not having people over at his house to hurt him maybe? I don't think he described me well to people," I tell George who nods.

"Yeah, I agree with that, he did lead us to believe you were eight until last night when we took you," he tells me which I kind of guessed because most of these gangs wouldn't touch someone if they had a kid to look after and there was no one else around. Then again, they probably would because they don't care that much. "I think he told me that once but I didn't think people would actually believe him. He isn't really capable of looking after a toddler or a child to be honest," I say and then we have to cut our conversation short as the Mafia van pulls into the location. "It's show time Golden Beast," he says and we both get out of the van at the same time the Mafia do.

They don't wear masks and skinny jeans like we do, they are far more sophisticated than that. They wear the finest suits money can buy and have the best cars and the best shoes. I try not to stare in awe too much. "Johnny, I hope you have the goods as promised," the main man says which leads me to believe he is Miles Decker. "I do indeed Mr Decker," Johnny replies and he allows the henchmen to take the goods from one van to another under the watchful glare of Mr Decker. I was aware that he was scrutinising me the entire time as well but I just stood next to George and kept a calm stance. "I didn't know you were recruiting newbies Johnny, well at least J-dog never told me," Mr Decker said once he had all his items.

"Yeah, well this is a one-time only thing. He used to be what kept people from going over to Aron and trying to knock some sense into him. We thought he would be more use working with us," George says and Mr Decker walked over to us so he could get a better look at me from what he could see under my mask. "He's older than I expected and he has been through a lot. Are they taking care of you nicely?" he says, aiming the first half at George and the last at me. "Yes, Mr Decker. Johnny and the others are being very nice to me," I tell him and I had said the right thing. 

"Good, I think you'll do great things working with George and the others," he tells me and then turns to look at George. "Take care of the kid Johnny," he says and then he leaves to get back into the van before George could reply to him so we took that as our cue to leave. Just after we had left we saw a police van speeding in that direction but we had taken our masks off as soon as we had left so we wouldn't get pulled over. "You did amazingly well there Danny. Miles doesn't like a lot of people so to have him like you straight away is pretty good," George says. Mr Decker did mention while business was going on that the payment would be in the gang bank account by the end of today which is cool for them.

"You do realise that technically the reward we got today splits in three right?" George asks me when he called Jorel to say that the deed was done. "No, who else does it go between besides you and Jorel?" I ask him and he smiles at me. "You, since you helped me today make sure that it all went smoothly it's only right that you get a cut of the rewards and we did kinda break into your house and kidnap you as well," he tells me. I am not quite sure what relevance the kidnapping and break in have to do with the money he is giving me but oh well. "Well, uhh thanks I guess. I wasn't expecting you to pay me for just standing there as back up," I tell him. He ruffled my hair while he was driving so he didn't notice the flinch that I did unintentionally.

"Yeah well, gotta give compensation to the little brunette we could have permanently traumatised last night when we broke into the house he was sleeping in, woke him up just to knock him out again and then took him away to a new house with strangers," George says, not being very serious at all. It took me all of a minute before my composure dissolved and I was laughing my head off. It is definitely the first time that I laughed in years without any fear. "I'm not that little. The giants took me on a freaking beanstalk to their castle," I reply and then he started laughing. "I think that is what we are naming the van from now on. I might get it spray painted on the side of the van next week," George says as he arrives at the house.

"You are kidding right?" I ask him as we get out of the van and walk into the house where the others are waiting. "Nope, I am being serious. We are naming the van the Beanstalk from now on thanks to you," he says and the others turn to look at us. Thanks George now I want to go and hide for eternity. "I guess you two had a good mission then," Jorel says and George nods. "Payment by the end of the day and it's going to me, you and Dan," he says and the others didn't protest. Dylan picked me up and hugged me and I was struggling to react to it but eventually I hugged him back and he put me down on the ground again.

"Well done Danny. Lucky, you weren't here earlier, Aron's been searching for you and we don't know if he has gone to the police about it yet," Dylan says and Jorel went to the van and brought my backpack out of it and handed it to me. There were a few of my outfits and the two pairs of shoes I own, one of which need binning because they are that badly worn. "But George told me on the way to the thing that it looks like I left on my own accord at the same time the robbing happened," I say, feeling a bit confused even though I know why Aron has come looking for me. "Obviously it didn't fool him it seems," Jorel says. I felt really scared now but I tried not to show it in front of them. "We need to get some hair dye or bleach for Danny and we will need to get it done sooner than I first thought," George says.

"I'm gonna go to my room for a bit," I suddenly announce and they let me go quite freely and don't really question it. Fuck I am so dead once that dude comes back for me. I don't know what to do. I am going to have to tell them sooner or later that my life is in serious danger. They are looking after me in the first 24 hours than he has ever done for years. I get that I am young and naive but at 24 I don't need to be treated like I was done before I got taken. I don't wanna die. I really don't wanna die.

~two weeks later~ Danny p.o.v~

I sigh as I bolt up from the third nightmare tonight. Now it's 7 am and I can hear voices so some of the guys must be up already. I run a shaking hand through my now very sweaty blonde locks and decide to grab a shower before a bathroom of the four we have are taken up and I don't want to face them like this. They are worried enough about me at the moment and I don't want to give them another reason to panic. I have been barely eating, barely sleeping just like I used to but now there are people who care about me and want me around so I have to show my face at least once a day or they will come into my room and carry me out of it so they can watch me eat something and have me socialise with them.

"I'm worried about Danny," I hear George say to someone right outside of the bathroom. "I know, we all are George but what can we do? It's not like we can force the kid into talking to us," Dylan says and I was in the shower so I thought it wouldn't do any harm to do a little bit of eavesdropping. "Yeah, but we can force Aron. Something was going on when he was at that house and I have reasons to think Aron is to blame for the broken Danny we have," George says and I nearly dropped the bottle of shampoo I was holding. George is so close to finding out the through and it scares me. I know he deserves justice for what he has done to me but I don't know if I want him to die for what he has done to me since I was a teen.

"I'll talk to Danny first, if I can get it out of him then maybe we don't have to go to Aron. He's dangerous when angry just think about what happened to Matt when he crossed Aron's wrong side. We don't want the same thing to happen to you as well," Dylan says and they left before I got out of the shower. I am just going to act like I didn't hear all of that when Dylan does come to talk to me but I don't know if I am going to tell him what happened yet. It's a lot to get my head around and I have only had two weeks of freedom and it is taking me some time to adjust to surviving the abuse that I went through. I am still terrified by the amount of freedom I now have. They rarely see me outside of my room now.

I was sitting on my bed and browsing the internet on my laptop when Dylan walked in with a tray of food. "Hey, I brought you some food Danny," he tells me and he sits on the bed and places the tray in front of me. The food looked tempting but my head was screaming to refuse it. "Thanks but I'm not hungry," I tell him, not looking up from my laptop because I bet if I look into his eyes I am going to start bawling my eyes out and then the whole truth will come out followed by a massive man hunt. "Come on Danny. I know you're lying to me, at least eat one of the things on the tray please," Dylan asks me and I turn to look at the food. There was a sandwich, some chips and a bar of chocolate. It looks like they are trying everything to get me to eat more.

I picked up the chocolate bar and that was soon gone. I looked up to Dylan who pushed the plate with the sandwich towards me. That was also soon gone and so were the chips which proved me wrong and Dylan right but he wasn't relishing in being right. He looked really upset when he watched me eat like I wasn't going to get fed for a while which is usually what happened when I got given food before freedom. "You feeling better now?" he asks me and I nodded. I forgot there was the lightheaded feeling when I hadn't eaten for a while. I decide to sit on his lap and he wrapped his arms around me. "Good, we care a lot about you Danny. We don't want to see you destroying yourself like this," he tells me and I sigh.

"I know, I can't help it though. I have been like this for years, it's not going to change overnight," I tell him and he hugs me tightly. I managed to turn around in his arms so I could return the hug and he started drawing patterns on my back. "Talk to me Danny, maybe if we know what's bothering you then we can fix it and make everything better," Dylan says and I rest my head on his shoulder. I guess it won't hurt to let him know what happened now. "You promise if I tell you that you won't judge me or interrupt until I am done? I don't know if I can tell you all of it though," I say and he was still drawing the patterns on my back. "Of course, I will Danny, if you can tell me then try and tell me as much as you possibly can," he says and I smile.

"Okay, so when you guys kidnapped me two weeks ago you technically saved my life. Aron hasn't been as nice to me as everyone thinks he has. He took me from my home when I was just fourteen years old and he has had me ever since. My mom has tried looking for me but never found me and when I got a phone I texted her to let her know I was okay but I couldn't come home just yet. I need to go see her at some point. Anyway, he didn't really treat me very well while he had me. I barely ate because he never fed me. I could only leave my room while he wasn't home," I tell him, pausing to catch my breath and stay calm. Dylan was listening to every word and I know he has questions but he was keeping them back so I could finish.

"That wasn't the only thing Aron would do. He would get mad at a lot of the things he found annoying about me. If I was caught doing something he found wrong then he would beat me for it. If he was angry at someone then he would take it out on me and if his day went bad then he would also take it out on me. I nearly died a few times but he never really cared," I tell him, getting too upset to tell him anymore and then Dylan cuddled me tighter and I started to cry on him. "Aw Danny, he's not going to be able to hurt you anymore. I will love and protect you like a I dunno a lover would do," he tells me as he is trying to calm me down. I just realised a minute after he said it that he just confessed to loving me.

I pulled out of the hug so I could luck into his eyes. I swear the butterflies from Johnny's tattoos were inside of me. I was just going to say I love him back like I wanted to since high school and he tutored me. "Are you okay Danny?" he asks me and I nod. "Yeah, it's just been a weird month. I love you too," I tell him and he smiles. I managed to give him a genuine smile and he gently pressed his lips onto mine. I kissed back almost straight away because it just felt right, it felt like we are meant to be. It was like that kiss was him asking me to be his boyfriend and me kissing him back was me saying yes. It was that unspoken but very obvious bond between us. "Wanna get some sleep? You look pretty tired," he tells me.

"Yeah, but I keep having night terrors that are really bad," I tell him and he hugs me gently. "Well I am here to take those nasty night terrors away," he replied and I smiled. I always felt safe around him so I guess sleeping in his arms won't do any harm. I sat by the pillows as Dylan went to clean the dishes he brought up with him. "Did you manage to get him to eat all that?" Jorel asks from outside the door. "Yeah, it took a minute to convince him but he was really hungry so he couldn't stop himself. I'm just gonna clean this and then he said he was tired so I was gonna see if I could get him to drink something then fall asleep," he tells Jorel and I heard footsteps head down the stairs and then I heard my door creak open.

"Hey Danny, how are you feeling now?" he asks me when he sees I was awake. He spoke quite softly to me like he did when I first woke up in this room. My own bedroom here hasn't been done yet and soon there might not be any point in it. "Yeah, I am really sorry for worrying you guys. These last few weeks have been hard for me I guess," I tell him, and he gives me a sad smile. "That's okay Danny we forgive you. We know the transition will be tough but this time next month you are gonna be just fine trust me," Jorel says as Dylan walks in with two banana milkshakes. "Thanks Jorel," I say and he hugs me. I hug him back and he walks out of the room. Dylan handed me a milkshake and then started drinking his own so I drank mine. It was very good, best milkshake I have had so far.

"Thanks Dylan that was amazing," I tell him and he smiles at me. I smiled back and I decided to crawl under the covers because I was really starting to feel exhausted. Dylan decided that he should join me and he wrapped his arms around me. I was starting to doze off in his arms and he kissed my temple. "You're welcome Danny, now just close your eyes and ley's hope you have some good dreams for once," he says and I close my eyes like he told me too. He had started drawing little love hearts on my arms now which felt really relaxing so I easily found myself falling asleep in his arms and finally feeling safe. He was going to protect me from Aron from now on I can just feel it and the others will too.

~One hour later~ Dylan p.o.v

Danny is sleeping in my arms and he just looked so adorable. His hair was quite messy and like he had a shower and just not bothered to style his hair. I saw his eyes move in his sleep like he was in the rapid eye movement part of sleep which happens sometimes but he looked peaceful like he was having a good dream. His face is pressed against my chest and his lips were ever so slightly parted and he wasn't snoring. I stopped drawing little hearts on his arm after I knew he was deeply asleep because I didn't feel like it could help him much. When I talked to Danny it was about 8 o'clock in the morning and now it is about 11 o'clock in the morning. George walked in and sat next to me on the bed, watching Danny sleep for a few moments.

"How is he? Did he tell you anything?" George asks me. He is looking out for Danny and he has been since I mentioned a little while ago that Danny doesn't really need to be around a person like Aron if it was the Danny I was thinking of. I know now I was right but I am not happy that I was right because my little Danny got hurt in the process. "He told me everything that happened to him while he was with Aron and it wasn't very good. He was basically more of a slave with him than he has been with us. Aron has been abusing him the whole time so now we are basically helping Danny rebuild his life," I tell George who rubbed Danny's hair. We initially thought that taking Danny would hurt Aron but it turns out to be completely different.

We saved Danny's life and might get Aron in a lot of trouble in the process. It will take Danny a while to adjust to not being abused anymore because we have to undo ten years of damage and it has only been two weeks. It's gonna be tough but since he has me and the rest of the gang to support him and he'll be better in not time. I watched as Danny tried to snuggle into me more but there wasn't more of me too snuggle. "Don't worry Danny. I am not gonna let him hurt you again," I tell him and even though he wasn't awake at that moment I think he heard me because he became more relaxed in his sleep. "You're right Dylan, no one in this house is going to let Aron lay a finger on Danny," he tells me and I smile.

Then Danny starts to toss and turn in his sleep and he was mumbling a lot of things that I didn't think were words until I heard "No" being spoken quite clearly. Whatever he was having a nightmare about was bad and he was definitely afraid. "Danny, wake up," I tell him and I rolled him onto his back so if he did bolt up no one would be hurt. Danny didn't wake up and he was now tossing and turning in his sleep and we could see the sweat building up. It was upsetting me to see him like this but I was going to do my very best to comfort him when he does wake up. "Come on Danny, wake up mate," George tells Danny and then he suddenly wakes up and then the tears start to fall down Danny's face.

"Don't worry Danny, it was just a nightmare. It's okay calm down," I tell Danny and take him into my arms. Danny started sobbing into my arms and I just rocked him back and forth a little bit to help calm him down and it didn't take too long because he really needed it. "It' was so real, it scared me," Danny tells me and he sounded like he was about to stutter. I rubbed his back and I let him rest his head on my shoulder. "Do you want to talk to me about it?" I ask him and then he saw George for the first time since he woke up. "I don't know if I should," he tells me and he definitely stuttered that time. "It will help you Danny because we can help you stop being afraid of whatever you had the nightmare about," George tells him.

"It was about Aron, he somehow knew what I look like now even though I am more tattooed and my hair colour is different. My eyes were blue in the dream like someone had given me contact lenses to hide my identity. It started at the shop we can walk to from here and I was getting something but I couldn't see what. Then it was the walk home where I noticed Aron was following me so I picked up my pace and so did he. It ended with him sprinting after me but he caught up with me and was just about to kill me," he admits to us before a fresh round of sobbing began. I did the same thing as before to calm him down and it worked. "He isn't going to hurt you anymore Danny we promise," I tell him and George nods. "If anything, we will throw that mother fucker in jail for hurting you," he says and I see the start of a smile on Danny's face.

"Thanks for saving me," Danny says and he places himself onto my lap again which I just happily accepted. "You're welcome Danny. We will always protect you," I tell him and then we decided to go down to watch a movie as a group. I carried Danny and he just let me, he had a really tight grip on my t-shirt so I don't think he really wanted to be apart from me which was very cute. Oh, man I have fallen head over heels for this little cutie patootie. Jorel just watched us with a raised eyebrow as Danny snuggled into me and I wrapped my arms around him. "So, uhh, when did this whole thing happen?" Jordon asks us because no doubt it was obvious to all of them that we are in love and dating now.

"About an hour ago," I tell him and I get a high five from him and Danny gets a gentle hug. I wasn't really up for sharing the Danny love but it was heat of the moment so I will let him pass for now. "Congratulations you two, you surely don't need to know what will happen to you if you mess this up," George tells me and I nod quickly. I will get my ass handed to me on a silver platter if I dare hurt Danny or break his heart and I know I am not going to do either of those things so I am in the clear. Danny hadn't really woken up from the nightmare so I knew about halfway through the film he was going to fall asleep. He had hold of my hand the whole time and it was the cutest thing ever. I am so glad we saved his life.


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically this is chapter 3 but I am calling it chapter two because I did a prologue and then chapter one which were the one shot I made and I split it roughly in half. So, Danny and Dylan are together and we will continue along a route I really want to take.
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Danny p.o.v

It has been a week since I started going out with Dylan and I am happy with him. He has been helping me so much dealing with my emotions and the trauma that I went through with Aron but they don't know the full truth just yet. Jorel and George were so angry and they tried to hunt Aron down on several occasions but they did have much success. Someone tried to get to Aron first and the house that was my "home" for the last ten years is now gone, it went up in smoke and if I wasn't taken from there a month ago I would have most likely died in that fire. I knew all this stuff cause George had texted me the information but he is just about to come home and inform the rest of the guys which is mainly Jorel, Jordon and Dylan. We are in the living room just waiting for him to come home and give us the information.

George walked in and pulled me into the tightest hug he could manage. It's fair to say that they have become really close to me over the month and we are almost like brothers now. "Hey, what happened when you went to find Aron?" Jorel asks and Dylan was concerned that I was still being tightly held by George. "I went back to the house we got Danny from just on the off-chance Aron is still hanging around there but someone else who hates him got there first. The house was still smoking when I got there and they said that there was no one inside so he must be somewhere else," George says and now the guys understand why George has me like this. "Oh my god," Jorel says and I looked up to see George nodding. "Yeah, this little one probably would have died if we hadn't have saved him when we did," George says and they all take it in turns to hold me tightly.

"Oh my god, that would have been awful. I don't think that Danny would have made it either because if he was always locked in his room like he says he was then he would have died from the smoke probably before the flames got to him," Dylan says who decided that he should be holding me tightly on his lap now on the couch while we talk about George's findings. "Yeah, Aron wouldn't care for me enough to save me from a fire. It would save him a couple of jobs for when he gets bored of me and he doesn't want me around and he would not have sent me to my mom and he wouldn't have sold me on," I tell them. I was starting to reveal more about my past and how I came to be Aron's slave. I guess I am free now and have gone from being a slave to a gang member.

"Yeah, we'll have to find your mom and let her know you are safe now. I bet she is worrying a lot especially since I think the fire would be on the news and she might assume you are in there or something," Jordon tells me. I am hoping to get in contact with my mom again soon so I could hug her again. "Yeah that would be nice, I know my mom is worrying about me somewhere and I miss her a lot," I tell him. I was resting my head on Dylan's shoulder and he was drawing little love hearts on my arm. "We will reunite you and your mom at some point Danny, maybe if I get my dad to do some digging we could find some way to contact her," Jorel says and I tilt my head to one side. "No offence Jorel but why on earth would your dad care about me enough to find my mom for me?" I ask him, feeling a bit confused.

"Because my dad treats the people who are in this gang like family as long as they protect me. He feels that you are a nice kid and it won't do any damage to him or you to find your mom," Jorel says. I gave him a small smile, it will take a while before I know that he has found my mom or not. "Yeah that would be awesome for Danny, she could even come here and see him. I think she would be a safe person to allow to be here," George says and I felt happy that they were going to welcome my mom if we ever found her. I noticed Dylan was getting quite upset and I don't think George had any more to say so a wriggled out of Dylan's grip and pulled him up to his feet so we could go upstairs and he could get emotional in private.

I was right because as soon as we got to our room he broke down and held me tightly. "I could have lost you before you would have been mine," He says, voice barely above a whisper as I tried to calm him down. "I know Dylan, but you didn't. It's not healthy to focus on the what ifs because I am here right now," I tell Dylan and he kisses the top of my head once the tears stopped. I wiped the remains of his tears with my jumper sleeves. "I know I should Danny but that thought did cross my mind because it is so easy to take a life away and yours is so precious to me," he tells me and I kiss him on the cheek. I know I want to go to the store in a little while and buy Dylan some Reese's pieces because he said he hasn't had any for a while and I wanted to surprise him with something nice. "I'm going into town a little bit later okay?" I ask him as I watched him sit on the bed.

"Okay, but all I ask Danny is you be careful and wear one of my hoodies so you can hide yourself if you need," Dylan says, referencing that nightmare I had about Aron coming after me which is still a possibility because we can't rule out that he is still alive and hunting for me. "I will Dylan, your hoodie would be awesome in case he is out there looking for me," I tell him and I watched him go into his closet and pulls out one of his stay sick hoodies and walks over to me and puts it on me. "Thank you Dylan," I tell him and he lifts me up, seeming to be in much better spirits than he was before. "You're welcome my little bear," he tells me and I give him my best smile. I want him to be calm and feel confident about letting me out of the house on my own.

I walk to the front door all ready to go and with my phone in my pocket so I could call them for help should I need them. "I'm just going for a walk to the shops guys, I won't be long," I tell them and George told me that it was fine and I just have to be careful. I told him that I would be and he felt more comfortable letting me go on my own. I am still not used to going out on my own after having no freedom for most of my life from various different people. I can't wait to see Dylan's face when I show him the Reese's pieces I am going to buy him. I wanted to buy him something just because I know now that I can and he deserves something nice after all that he has done for me. I started walking towards Walmart because luckily for me it is in walking distance and it doesn't take that long.

I got the Reese's pieces and some other sweet treats for the other guys and I picked them based on what I can remember them saying that they like them. I wasn't getting anything for me but I know that I have some Twizzlers at home. I was in and out within an hour which impressed me because it was the first time that I was in a Walmart on my own and it took me a minute to find the stuff that I needed because I almost got lost. I noticed something a little weird on my walk home and it made me very nervous. I pulled the sleeves down on my hoodie so that all my arm and hand tattoos are now covered up. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Aron so I put my hood up so that even if he had seen a glimpse of me he wouldn't know who I was.

I picked up the pace of my walking, hoping to get to the back route so I could run and loose Aron and he wouldn't find me to drag me back. He also picked up the pace and we got faster until he was running after me and I dashed into the back route to the home I now live in. I know a little hidey hole that I could run to if I manage to do it without being spotted by him. It took a few nerve wracking minutes but I managed to hide from Aron as he ran past me in my spot and I think he gave up looking for me after a few minutes. Maybe he thought I was Dylan and he was trying to get information on my whereabouts. At least now I know that I can confirm to the guys that the guy is unfortunately still living.

I ran home after the cost had been clear for at least five minutes so I knew that Aron wasn't going to catch up with me. Or so I thought, the bastard was hiding himself and was waiting for me to come out so I was being chased once again through this little wooded path by our house. I tripped and for a moment I thought it was game over until I heard a gunshot ring which sent the coward running before he saw my face. I stayed frozen in place, shaking because I didn't see who could have potentially saved my life. It turns out to be Jorel and I was never so happy to see the Italian in my life. "Danny, are you okay? Did he get you?" he asks me as he pulls me up to my feet and hands me back my Walmart bag. "I'm okay Jorel, just fell while I was running. I don't think he has seen my face but he chased me from the store and I thought I lost him," I said, clearly out of breath and scared.

"Well, I got you now and you'll be safe with me. Let's get you home and cleaned up, you're all muddy," he teases and wraps his arm around me as we carefully make it the short distance to the house. Dylan and Jordon were waiting in the kitchen for us to get home and all I could do was shakily put the bag on the table before my legs gave out on me and Jorel had to catch me as I fell to the floor. "What happened? I thought he was going to the store and back," Jordon asks as Dylan came to be by my side to try and stop the shaking. "Aron happened. The bastard chased the poor kid from Walmart through the back route. If I didn't take the gun with me and fire a warning shot then it is most likely that he would have Danny back in his evil scummy hands," Jorel says and Dylan pulled me into a tight hug.

"I'm okay guys, just scared I guess," I tell them and Dylan kisses my temple. "I know baby but Aron almost stole you away from us and you are pretty shaken up," Dylan says and Jorel digs through the bag that I had to see if there was anything he could give me for the shock. "Is any of this candy for you Danny?" Jorel asks as he could only find their favourites and the ones that I don't really like or am allergic to. "No, I think I still have Twizzlers left. All of those stuff is for you guys," I tell him and I heard a little aw from someone. "Danny, you didn't have to do this for us," Jorel says and I saw Dylan nodding. "I'll go find some biscuits, they'll help Danny's shock," Jordon says and George walked in. I was still kinda in a heap on the floor.

"I take it something went wrong?" George asks and he had his leader head on. It is his duty after all to protect all of us. "Yeah, just the journey home went wrong because of Aron. The bastard chased the poor kid from Walmart through the back route. If I didn't take the gun with me and fire a warning shot then it is most likely that he would have Danny back in his evil scummy hands," Jorel says as Jordon hands me a couple of biscuits and some cold Gatorade from the fridge. "Thanks Jordon," I tell him and he ruffles my hair. "It's okay Danny," he replies, I almost forgot for a moment I am nearly ten years younger than most people here. George was processing the information he had been given and looked at me in my current state.

"Aron didn't manage to get his hands on you to hurt you, did he?" George asks me as he crouched down on the floor so he could look at me. He would know if I was lying or not instantly because that is a skill he has learned. "No, he didn't even see my face I don't think. He would have shouted my name if he knew it was me. I only know it was him because before I got chased I saw him out of the corner of my eye," I tell him. I started munching on the biscuit and I started feeling better, I was a little bit better after the drink as well. "Okay that's good, maybe we could let Miles know that Aron is nearby and actively searching for Danny because he is on the wanted list now and he has gotta die I think," George says, I knew at this point Aron wasn't going to make it out alive and I didn't care. He can rot in hell for all that he has done to me.

"Yeah, I'll let dad know later when I ask about finding Danny's mom. Maybe we should give Danny a once over just in case we are missing something. I saw that fall he took and it was quite nasty," Jorel says and I vaguely remember the fall which must have been ten maybe twenty minutes ago. "Yeah, let's get him into the living room and get him changed into some spare stuff. He does seem pretty out of it," George says and I felt him lift me up and carry me into the living room. I just relaxed and rested my head against his chest. "Don't worry Danny, you're safe now," he reassures me and I smiled at him. "I know I am when I am with you guys," I tell him, then realising that I haven't thanked Jorel yet for saving my sorry blonde ass.

"Hey Jorel, thanks for saving me back there dude," I tell him when he appeared seconds after I had been placed on a towel on the couch. He was holding a first aid kit in case I had any cuts and bruises to my body that need sorting out. "You're welcome Danny, you are one of us now and we have to look after our own," Jorel tells me and then I heard Dylan come into the living room. "I got some clean clothes and a bowl of warm soapy water in case," Dylan says and I still felt loved. It felt like someone was caring about me and that was something I haven't experienced in a long time but I have now since they have come along. "Awesome Dylan, we'll let you get Danny changed if he can't do it himself," Jorel says and he only took my muddy trainers of so they could get cleaned. My socks seem to be fine, not a trace of mud on them.

Dylan took his jacket off me and added it to a growing pile of muddy clothes on the floor. They will all be cleaned later. I felt locked in my own body and there was nothing that I could to do help Dylan as he slowly made sure that my clothes were going to be changed into cleaner ones. There were some small cuts on my torso with some bruises and Jorel started to patch me up before Dylan will take my muddy jeans off. I was whimpering in pain a little bit but I could feel Dylan playing with my hair. "This is a nastier fall than I thought, where on the path did he tumble?" George asks, I was still completely out of it and I heard Jordon mention something about me getting paler. "There were loads of fallen tree bits everywhere and I think he might have flipped over two of them before landing," Jorel says.

That was the last thing I could remember because I passed out seconds later. I guessed that much when I found myself in my room in bed with the covers tucked around me and my clothes felt soft and clean against my skin. My right leg was causing me some issues but I had no idea what was going on and what injuries they found. "Dylan don't worry, Danny will wake up from this. He was in very bad shock when he got home and we don't know how much blood he lost with that nasty gash to his leg," I hear Jorel say just outside the door. I wasn't going to pretend to sleep when Dylan walks in because I feel like that would be cruel. "I know Jorel, maybe I am just being over protective and over sensitive today," Dylan says and I knew Jorel was hugging Dylan. It's so nice to have someone love and care about me like that.

"Nah, I can promise you that you are not over emotional. Danny's life is on the line, who knows what Aron could do if he got his hands on Danny. We learned today that if we didn't take him when he did then he would have died and then Aron nearly grabbed him two hours ago. All your emotions are justified," Jorel says, and I got confused, so the whole incident on the sofa was two or more hours ago. Man, I have fallen and hurt myself worse than I thought. "Thanks Jorel, I am just going to stay with him for a bit and see if he wakes up," Dylan says and I felt a little smile coming. He was going to be in for a surprise. "Okay, I'll call my dad and let him know the stuff I am supposed to. Make sure Danny eats something though," Jorel says and I knew they would part ways not long after that.

He didn't notice that I was awake when he first walked into the spare room which is still technically mine even though I share Dylan's room most of the time. They gave up decorating a room for me unless something was going to go wrong with Dylan and I's relationship. It was only when Dylan sat down to take one of my hands as he was right next to me on the double bed that he noticed I was awake and staring at him. "Hey bear, how do you feel now?" he asks, I saw his eyes light up and he was happy to see me. "I'm feeling a bit rough but I will live," I tell him and he hugs me gently. Any movement of my right leg just send pain shooting through it so I decided to stay put. "I'm glad that you are awake now, when you suddenly passed out like that it scared me," Dylan says and I tried the best that I could to hug him.

He helped me onto my side so hugging him on his side would be a lot easier. "I know Dylan. I only went out because I wanted to get you guys a little something as a thank you for everything you've done so far. I wasn't expecting to be chased by Aron and to fall like I did. I can't even remember falling. Well I do but I kind of don't remember falling this badly," I tell him. The pain is my leg is still pretty much noticeable but I was trying my best to ignore it. "Aw bear, you don't have to do anything for us other than the tasks we have to do. I bet you are in a lot of pain right now," he says and I look at him. "Yeah, I am in a bit of pain right now, I don't suppose we have any pain pills do we?" I ask him and he nods.

"Yeah, I'll go get you some and a drink. I will also get you a sandwich, you were out for two hours and you missed lunch so you gotta be a bit hungry too," Dylan says and my stomach growled at me. I was definitely hungry. "Okay, don't be gone too long though," I tell him and he smiled at me. "Don't worry Danny, I am not leaving you. I am just going to get the things you need to feel a little better," Dylan tells me and I gave him a smile as well. It was a weak one compared to the one I gave him before this whole stuff happened but it was something. I was a little nervous while he was gone but it wasn't long before he was back with all the stuff he needed and he gave them to me. I struggled to get into a sitting position but I was okay after a minute. "Don't forget to take it easy Danny. You've been through a whole bunch today," Dylan says after I had a little dizzy spell.

"Don't worry Dylan, you aren't going to get me out of this bed today I don't think. What happened to my leg? I don't remember it being an issue before," I ask him, because my leg was really starting to bother me. I took the pills and started eating the sandwich while I waited for his answer. "You got a twig or something in a deep gash on your right calf. It was very bloody and I didn't watch George patch you up for that bit. I know he had to put a lot of stitches in there though," he tells me and I kind of understood. If I fell where there were lots of fallen logs then there is every possibility one pierced my skin like this. "I suppose that makes sense. Definitely staying off my feet for the rest of the day at least," I tell him. He knew that if I said something like that I was going to stick to it. "Then I shall keep you company. Maybe later I can carry you down to the living room to watch a film with the guys since we have no TV in here," Dylan says, already back to his cheery self.

"Maybe, we'll see how I feel later. I might feel really sleepy and wanna nap the whole night or something," I said, being a little silly at the end but I knew that as it will get closer to the end of the day the more exhausted I am going to be. Dylan came and sat back down next to me once I was finished with my sandwich and George walked in with a brand-new television which made me raise one eyebrow. Well Dylan's plan to make me socialise with the guys seems to have failed because of this new thing. "Are you feeling any better Danny?" George asks me once he sets the television up for me. "Yeah, I feel a little rough but I am sure I am going to be okay," I tell him and he hands me the remote. "That's good, I am putting you on a sort of strict bed rest because of your leg so we decided to bring you some entertainment so you aren't bored," George tells me.

"Thank you, George, I was going to stay in bed for the rest of today at least anyway. I don't really feel too much like moving right now," I tell him. He smiles and sits on the other side of me because there was some room on the bed for him. "You're welcome Danny. I am glad you do feel a bit better. You do look a bit brighter now," he tells me and we just spend the next few hours watching some television because we have nothing better to do. Then Jorel walked in and smiled, seeing me awake and alright. "Hey, my dad is looking for your mom now Danny and they are keeping an eye out for Aron if he is seen he will be dealt with," Jorel says which made me feel a little bit more comfortable that Aron probably isn't going to hurt me again. "Okay, thanks Jorel," I tell him and then he switches places with George so he could sit with me.

"How does your leg feel?" Jorel asks me and I gently moved my right leg a little bit and winced. "A bit sore, I know it's quite a nasty gash to my leg but I haven't walked on it yet," I tell him and he gives me a pat on the shoulder. "Yeah, it went quite deep. Don't worry though we will try and get you walking tomorrow if you are feeling better," Jorel tells me and I smiled at him. We are going to take it one day at a time. If I had a nasty fall like I seem to have done then it will take some time for me to recover completely. I yawned and snuggled into Dylan. "Do you want to take a nap now Danny? I'll wake you up when dinner is ready," Dylan tells me. I yawned again and Dylan was playing with my hair. "Yeah, I am not concussed or anything right?" I ask him and Jorel. I don't remember hitting my head but they would know if I did or not.

"Yeah, you will be fine to sleep for however long it is before dinner. You didn't hit your head when you fell so I am confident in saying that you are not concussed," Jorel tells me and I yawn again. I close my eyes and try and snuggle up to Dylan as closely as I can. "It's okay Danny, I am going to stay with you while you nap," Dylan tells me and I smiled at him. Jorel was drawing little designs on my arm to help me settle into a comfortable sleep. It didn't take me long before I fell asleep with my brother and my boyfriend protecting me. I am safe once again and I know today was scary for more than one reason and for everyone involved. Maybe today I was going to not have another nightmare but it will come eventually.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~3 hours later- Dylan P.o.v~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was carefully hugging Danny in his sleep so he was basically lying on top of me and he was sleeping away very peacefully. I know it has been a long time since he has last had some pain medication and the one he had four hours ago might be wearing off soon so he might wake up a bit upset and in pain but I had the box of ibuprofen nearby and some water so he could take some as soon as he is awake enough to. Jorel had also fallen asleep and he had an arm wrapped around Danny and I took a cheeky little selfie to send to George. He was wondering why Jorel hasn't moved from Danny's room yet. The television is still on so that gives me something to do while I wait for one of them to wake up.

"I'm surprised Jorel is sleeping. I knew Danny would because of his injuries and how his body is going to cope with those but I didn't know Jorel needed a nap too," George says quietly as he brings in three plates of dinner for the three of us in the bed. "Maybe he is tired too, I hear that being the son of a mafia leader tends to lead to a lot of stress," I say, just as quietly as I try and figure out how I was going to sit up and eat my dinner without waking the two sleeping ones who seem to need the naps they are having quite badly. "Maybe we should wake Danny up, make him eat and take the pills and then go back to sleep. I'll take Jorel's and put it in the oven to try and keep it warm for a bit," George suggests and that seems like a good plan. "Yeah, good idea," I tell him.

Then I gently nudged Danny's shoulder with my free hand and he started to stir. At least he isn't concussed. "Danny, just waking you up so you can have another dose of the pain pills and some food and then you can go back to sleep," I tell him and he opens his eyes at me. He winced as he sat up next me and George handed him his plate with a couple of pain pills and his drink of orange juice. "Thanks George, I don't think I need a nap after this though. I'll go to sleep when it is night time," Danny says before he takes his pills and starts eating his dinner. That is fair enough, Jorel was now hugging Danny's slightly dodgy leg but Danny didn't seem to mind. He even looked down and patted the second in command's head. "He's not been sleeping good with the pressure and stuff," Danny says which basically confirmed my earlier thoughts.

I know Danny is the guy to go to when you want to talk about anything. Despite all the bad shit that he has gone through during his twenty-four years of life he can offer plenty of advice on certain topics. Mainly on how to deal with stress and Jorel certainly knows how much stress can affect people. "Yeah, that's why we are letting him nap for a bit longer. Then maybe he will sleep good," I tell him. Danny was still eating his dinner while we were talking because it was still a bit hot. George had left after Danny woke up to put Jorel's dinner away for now so he wasn't privy to the conversation going on. Jorel was so deeply asleep that he didn't wake up while we were talking which was good. We want him to sleep.

"I wonder what Mr Decker really thinks of Jorel. Like maybe there is something not quite right he isn't telling us. I know they have a relationship because Jorel goes to him to help with problems and he asks his dad for help but I don't know I just get this vibe from them," Danny says, remembering the time Miles had come to our house just after Danny's imitation to our gang so he could do a second one to see if Danny was worthy in his eyes as well. "Jorel has two brothers and two sisters. There has always been intense rivalry between them because they always want to be the top child in their father's eyes and it has become harder since his brother Evan killed himself," George says when he walks back in, trying to keep his voice down. Evan was always going to be a sore topic for Jorel. This wasn't something Danny knew before now and I saw Danny play with Jorel's hair a little bit.

Jorel always treats Danny like the little brother he never had. Danny told me he knows he has two brothers and a sister but he has never spent time with them so having Jorel treat him like a little brother made him feel like he had a big brother to protect him. "I thought he was the top child by the way Miles praised him last time I saw him but I guess the sibling rivalry got him down," Danny tells George. It is a fight between the children more often than not, so that's why it is a dream to be an only child, especially if you are in the mafia. "Yeah, Miles sees him as the top child but the rest of the Decker children disagree," George says and Danny was still messing around with Jorel's hair. I love how much of a care bear my little bear is.

George took Danny's plate off him when he was finished eating and took it away to be cleaned. Jorel is still pretty much out for the count sleeping and I thought Danny was going to follow him because of how big of a yawn he let out. He stayed awake to my surprise. He rests his head on my shoulder as we watch some films on the television while the Italian sleeps the day away. I think it must have been eight pm when Jorel finally woke up from his little nap. Danny was in and out of dozing off and I knew he wasn't going to make it to ten pm or he might just fall asleep then. "Hey Jorel, you sleep good?" I ask him when he rubbed his eyes and I sat up. It had been about 4 hours since the second in command fell asleep.

"Yeah, how long did I sleep? I can't remember the last time I took a nap," Jorel asks and Danny gave him a hug, seemingly out of nowhere but I knew why Danny hugged the older one. "You were sleeping for four hours. This one slept for three but I woke him up to make him eat and take his pills," I tell him as he hugged Danny back which made him even more confused. "Okay, so why is this one hugging me like he hasn't seen me in a while and something really bad happened?" Jorel asks and Danny came to snuggle up to me. "George told me about Evan and I wanted to hug you. I can tell you are letting stress get to you and you don't need to," Danny says, he couldn't avoid saying Evan's name because Jorel wouldn't have known what he was talking about. He didn't seem too upset by Danny saying his brother's name.

"You're right Danny. It is hard when I talk to my dad and he praises me for saving you and then says he will step up the hunt for Aron and he will find your mom within the next two weeks and then I hear one of them in the background saying that dad wouldn't need to waste men and hours hunting for Aron if I didn't kill the bastard when I had the chance. Even today when he came after you I had the chance to get rid of him and I fucking blew it," Jorel says, Danny had broken into the walls of Jorel's mind and allowed the feelings to come out which would make him feel a lot better once we work through them. Danny gave Jorel another hug and Jorel hugged him back and I knew that he was struggling to hold it all in.

"Yeah, that would be cool if he finds my mom in the time he says. When it comes to your siblings though, they don't fully understand the repercussions of actions like that. I bet someone heard that gun you fired because we were kinda close to Walmart at the time. The last thing your dad wants right now is for you to be in a jail cell because someone caught you killing Aron. Karma will come and bite him on the ass soon enough. I bet your dad understands why you didn't kill Aron today," Danny says, making everything right like usual. I still can't believe after all the shit he has been through he is always there to help others and rarely asks for help himself even though I know he needs it sometimes. "Yeah, I guess so. I was more worried about protecting you and saving you then killing him," Jorel says and George made him jump.

"And that's why your dad picked you over the others. You were thinking logically about the situation and putting Danny's safety above the desire for revenge and the desire to kill. We will let Mile's top assassin Jess deal with Aron," George says and it is true. If Aron was Jorel's main focus then something else could have happened to Danny and maybe even Jorel himself. We don't know if Aron was completely alone in the forest when he was chasing Danny. He could have gotten back up for himself. Danny has to meet Jess at some point, that fiery redhead is one of the US top 5 assassins and I heard somewhere maybe a little bird told me that she has a little bit of a crush on a certain Italian and the Italian might return the feelings. I hadn't heard Danny talk since that little speech he made and I was expecting him to ask who Jess was.

I look to George who was hugging Danny and Danny's eyes were slowly starting to flutter closed. "I think someone's tired," I say, changing the subject to the young blonde who was trying so hard to stay awake and it wasn't working. "Yep, I was going to test him weight bearing on that leg for a minute but I think he is too tired. Maybe we can do it tomorrow like we planned," George says but some loud banging on the door suddenly startled Danny awake who then clung to George in this sudden act of fear. The poor kid was absolutely terrified. I heard Jordon go to answer it but I heard the sound of a pistol being cocked first. Safety is paramount here. "it's okay Danny, if Aron is there he won't get you," George says, trying to reassure the terrified blonde but it wasn't working so Jorel and I had a hand each on his back to provide extra security. "Matt, what the fuck are you doing here? We thought you died long ago," Jordon shouts and we all look to each other with confusion. We definitely know Matt is dead. They never found his body but we saw the video.

"He missed, I was found in another state and taken for treatment there. I had severe amnesia that's why no one found my body and stuff like that," I heard Matts voice and I got excited. It really was him and we are all excited but Danny. "Well, all I can say is thank fuck for that. It's been hella weird without you. We do have someone for you to meet though," Jordon says and I heard them walk up the stairs. Danny had calmed down with some reassurance and a couple of kisses off me. He knows Matt isn't a threat. Jordon walked into the room and then followed by Matt, who looked stunned. "Matt," we all cheered happily, well not everyone. Danny was just as stunned as Matt was to see him. "Danny?" Matt asked and I swear my jaw dropped to the floor. Danny and Matt know each other? How the fuck did that happen? How the fuck do they know each other?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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> 
> Well, I wasn't intending to end it on this note or was I? haha I love throwing random curveballs in there like that. What do you guys think about it?? More is to come don't worry.


	4. Chapter 3

~ A few minutes later~

“Matt, what the fuck are you doing here? We thought you died long ago,” Jordon shouts and we all look to each other with confusion. We definitely know Matt is dead. They never found his body but we saw the video.

“He missed, I was found in another state and taken for treatment there. I had severe amnesia that’s why no one found my body and stuff like that,” I heard Matts voice and I got excited. It really was him and we are all excited but Danny. “Well, all I can say is thank fuck for that. It’s been hella weird without you. We do have someone for you to meet though,” Jordon says and I heard them walk up the stairs. Danny had calmed down with some reassurance and a couple of kisses off me. He knows Matt isn’t a threat. Jordon walked into the room and then followed by Matt, who looked stunned. “Matt,” we all cheered happily, well not everyone. Danny was just as stunned as Matt was to see him. “Danny?” Matt asked and I swear my jaw dropped to the floor. Danny and Matt know each other? How the fuck did that happen? How the fuck do they know each other?

~Danny p.o.v~

I had no idea that Matt was in the gang too. I met him it must have been a few years back before I got bought by Aron. I must have been thirteen at the time but I can’t say Matt has changed much and that I have changed a whole bunch in ten years since I first met him. “Matt?” I ask once I had gotten over the initial shock of seeing him again for the first time. “How’ve you been buddy?” he asks me and the guys let him pull me into a hug. I hugged him back and I knew my leg was still a little sore but it was okay. “I’m okay now. How’ve you been?” I ask him and I looked to see he had a smile on his face. “Good now I am back with my guys and you,” he says and I smiled at him. He was going to buy me back then so he could set me free but Aron got there first unbeknownst to Matt.

“So, how do you know each other?” Dylan asks when I go back to him for a cuddle. I shuffled on the bed to get back to him and I was not yet walking. George was worried that I didn’t want to walk on my bad leg but I know either tonight or tomorrow he will make me try. “I went to the place they sold Slaves about ten years ago, that’s where I met this little guy. He was up for sale and I was going to buy him so I could set him free but when I came back after thinking about it for a few days he was already gone,” Matt explains and I nodded. I hated being taken from my mom every day and wait to be sold to some creep who would hurt me. Dylan held me tighter, none of the men in the room like the idea of someone being sold for labour so to know I was going through that must have upset them a little bit.

“Turns out it was Aron he was sold to. We found Danny at Aron’s house after we kicked him out because he stole from the mafia. I think Aron knows we have taken Danny because there was a little incident between him and Danny on the path today,” George explains and Dylan rubbed my arm a little bit. “Yeah, I saw Aron today, he’s been looking for me because it got back to him that I didn’t die so I guess he will want to take me and Danny out. I was only coming by to say that I am okay. For Danny’s safety I will leave again and pop in every now and then,” Matt says and I felt sad. I didn’t want to be the reason why his reunion with the guys is ruined. “You don’t have to you know, I am getting Jess on the case for Danny’s protection. My dad is going to get Aron eventually and Danny isn’t going to be in any increased danger now you’re here,” Jorel says.

“I’ll come back for good when Aron is gone Jorel. I really don’t want him to be in danger. I don’t know how many of Aron’s men he has hired are coming after me but he really wanted me dead,” Matt says and I was starting to get upset, from what I remembered of Matt I really liked him and he was really nice to me. “Well at least spend one night with us Matt. Matt saw my face and he came to sit next to me and Dylan so he could give me another hug. “Okay Jorel, only for tonight though. Don’t worry Danny, you haven’t done anything. I am doing this to protect you,” Matt says starting by talking to Jorel and then ending by talking directly to me like he was reading my mind or something. “Okay Matt, I just didn’t want to be the reason why you left because you have been here longer than I have,” I tell him.

“Aw, you really are one of a kind Danny. You would never drive me away from these loveable idiots. If anything, it makes me want to come back sooner but I know deep down that is just going to lead to more trouble,” Matt says and I hugged him back. The guys didn’t mind that they were just called loveable idiots. The room that I was meant to have used to be Matt’s so I think it is an obvious decision for me to eventually move into Dylan’s room and share with him. “Your room is kinda in the middle of being remodelled so I guess you could share with Danny and Dylan tonight,” Jorel says because we all knew Dylan wasn’t going to leave me alone tonight. “That’s okay with me. Wait, are Danny and Dylan a thing now?” Matt asks and it seems like Dylan’s love to me was very obvious at that moment.

“Yeah, only recently though,” Dylan says and I kiss his cheek which made him smile. Jorel was right, I am quickly adjusting to the new better life they were giving me. Matt felt happy that Dylan and I have gotten together. “Danny, I’ll get you walking tomorrow. You just rest tonight,” George says, and I hug him before he left the room to go to bed. It was getting quite late and I was dozing off in Dylan’s arms like I was George’s before Matt made his dramatic entrance. “Yeah, let’s let the little bear sleep,” Jordon says and I managed to flip him off. Dylan chuckled and Jordon rolled his eyes before he left the room. Jorel was more reluctant to leave the room but I told him I was going to be fine and if I needed him for anything then I would give him a shout.

There was enough space on the king-sized bed for the three of us that were left and Dylan was not wanting to share me with Matt. Matt didn’t mind that but he did hug the both of us. “Matt isn’t going to steal me off you Dylan, he just wants cuddles,” I tell him, tiredly because I was halfway to falling asleep in his arms. “Okay, just as long as he doesn’t steal you off me because you are mine and only mine bear,” he tells me and I roll my eyes. I actually liked the protectiveness but I wasn’t about to admit it. He let Matt hug me from the other side and I had my arms around Dylan because I am going to end up with my face in his chest when I wake up. “Glad to have you back Mattie, even if it is only for one night,” Dylan says and I felt Matt hug us both tightly.

“I’m glad to be back. Why was George worried about you walking anyway Danny?” Matt asks, I wasn’t drifting off to sleep just yet but I knew I was about to. “I kinda got chased by Aron today and I fell pretty hard. I have a nasty gash on my right leg and I find it painful to move right now and I haven’t put any pressure on it since I got back,” I explain, Matt knows about Aron and he seems to be trustworthy. “Yeah, I suppose he is trying to steal you back off the guys since they took you off him at some point,” Matt replies and Dylan kisses the top of my head. I try and kiss him on the lips but I could only reach his chin from where I was lying but he liked it anyway. Matt thinks we are very cute and he couldn’t contain the fangirling.

“I’m going to say my goodbye to you now Danny just in case you are still sleeping when I leave tomorrow. It was nice seeing you again and I bet we’ll see each other at some point in the future,” Matt says and I hug him before snuggling back into Dylan. “It was nice seeing you too, we will see each other again I’m sure,” I tell him before I yawned. “Alright Danny. Sleepy time now,” Dylan says and I smile at him. I was probably going to be out for the count when Matt wants to leave in the morning. It took him a lot of convincing to even spend the night here because he is so worried about Aron attacking me or the others. “Night Dylan, night Matt,” I tell them before I yawned again. “Night Danny,” Matt says and then Dylan says the same after him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Next morning 11am~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“It’s ten am in the big brother house,” I hear from the television and I thought for a second I was in the spare room as I woke up but it turns out I am in the living room in George’s arms, not in bed with Dylan. Since I have no idea what the time is I assume Matt has already left. I didn’t know the guys watch big brother but this one sounded more like the British version then the American one which I didn’t mind. I found the announcer guy kinda funny anyway. I was also waiting to see when the other guys would notice that I am awake now. I didn’t realise that I was going to sleep as long as I have but I am very tired. Yesterday was very weird from what I could remember. First there was the news about the house I spent the last ten years in burnt down, then I got chased by Aron and I managed to do myself some serious damage falling. Then just as everyone was about to go to bed Matt shows up out of nowhere then leaves again.

I am lying on George’s lap and my head nearly touched his collar bone. They gave us a blanket and George was randomly drawing little patterns in the fleece material. Then a fight broke out in big brother and I tried my hardest not to jump and give myself away to him. He still thinks I am sleeping I guess. It didn’t matter anyway because a minute later Jorel blew my cover. “Hey Danny, how are you feeling this morning?” he asks me and I jumped at the sudden noise that wasn’t the television. George was very quiet while he was watching the television I noticed. “I’m okay,” I reply and I felt George wrap his arms around me in a hug. “I thought you were still sleeping, how long have you been up Danny?” he asks me.

“Not long, I think I woke up to the guy saying it was ten am in the house,” I tell him. George didn’t mind that I was still on his lap either, I think yesterday was more nerve-wracking and scary for the guys then they were letting on. “Ah so not too long then, what did you think of that challenge they did?” George asks me. They did this challenge where they had this lightbulb type thing and they did a task to fill it up so it was their electricity for the thing. Then they were one by one called into this room where someone they loved would be hidden on the other side or there would be a letter but if they chose to see this then it would drain some of their electricity and not all of them would be able to do it. The whole point of the challenge was to resist their temptations anyway.

“It’s a weird one for sure. I get that some of the people who have been in there longer deserve that chance to have contact with their family but that woman with the dog took the piss and this lot is the biggest bunch of cry-babies that I have ever seen,” I tell him, trying to keep most of my opinion to myself but it did annoy me how long that woman took spending time with her dog which meant that two people missed out that time and they had been in there longer than dog lady. “Yeah, I was going to say something along those lines. That woman with the dog has pissed me off since the start to be honest. Like bitch get a grip,” he says and I laughed and so did Jorel. “Glad you both agree on that and you won’t bitch fight over it. I’m making some mac and cheese for lunch, you want any Danny?” Jorel asks me and I nodded.

I haven’t eaten since dinner last night so it was safe to say I was starting to get hungry now. “Might as well all have it in the dining room so we can get this one on his feet again. I know it’s gonna be painful at first but as long as he walks on it as much as he can it will be fine,” George says and Jorel left to go make the lunch because he said it is only about 11:20 in the morning and lunch won’t be until after twelve that I had plenty of time to just sit and relax for now with George. “Where’s Dylan?” I ask, usually my boyfriend is nearby and hovering when I wake up. “He said he wanted to start making his room feel more like yours and his. He was so worried he barely slept last night though but I said I’d keep an eye on you if he wanted to sleep but he refused but I brought you down here with me anyway,” George says. Dylan is probably sleeping on his bed then if that’s the case.

“Yeah, he’ll probably be sleeping right now then,” I tell him and I tested moving my leg around which brought me some pain. I know when I have lunch I will get some Tylenol for the pain. I am happy that Dylan is not too worried about me now that he knows that I am safe with George. George was getting so frustrated with dog lady that he changed the channel onto something else other than big brother. “I swear if she wins then there is no hope for the show at all,” George says and I chuckle. He can get passionate about his big brother sometimes. “I don’t think Sue is gonna last long, not many people like her,” I comment, remembering hearing them bitch about her spending all that time with her dog which meant that more deserving people missed out.

“Yeah, she probably isn’t going to last long but even we could make an incorrect judgement here,” George says. I looked around to see if Matt was around but it is safe to say that he has left now. “Mattie left at eight this morning, as I brought you down so he did give you a hug while you were sleeping. I tried to convince him to stay until you had woken up but he was very twitchy about leaving as soon as possible,” George says and I understood. He knew I was looking for Matt because I already knew where Dylan was and I knew where Jorel was and Jordon was in the room listening to music on his phone while we watched big brother. “Something about Matt’s reappearance doesn’t sit right with me. I get bad vibes from it, he has had all of this time to come and find us so why now, why on the day Aron almost finds Danny?” Jorel asks when he walks into the room.

“Yeah, that is a weird coincidence. The twitchiness didn’t sit right with me either. Like if he was so desperate to see you guys why didn’t he hang around to see you for longer and to know all of the changes that have happened,” I tell him. It has crossed my mind that it was too weird that we see Aron and Matt in the same day and one of them is supposed to be dead and one will be dead as soon as Jess gets her hands on him. “I hope this doesn’t turn into us having to move because our safety is compromised. I might need to have someone keep an eye on him so he doesn’t go rouge on us,” Jorel says and I could tell the last 24 hours have definitely taken their toll on him emotionally. He and George need to think of new strategies to keep everyone safe and to have a potential brother turn enemy is the last thing they want.

“Hey, maybe I could do it. He gave me his phone number last night, I could arrange meet ups and get him to cough any info up without him actually knowing I am doing it,” I tell them and they look at me as if I have managed to grow another head. “Danny that is way too risky, I can’t let you do that,” Jorel says but I could tell George was actually putting more thought into the comment he was about to make on it. Jorel is immediately thinking about my safety and Aron being at large is a huge risk to that. “Danny could do it, we could set up the meet-ups in areas where your dad has bodyguards nearby and all Danny would need to do if he sensed danger is make a signal to them and they would go and rescue him,” George says and Jorel couldn’t protest with that. If they were out of the way but still with me in their eyeline then it would be fine.

“That’s a great idea George, considering we caught Matthew on the CCTV cameras this morning acting very suspiciously. We are following it up but someone like Danny would do great in that kind of scenario,” Miles Decker says suddenly announcing his arrival which made me jump a little in my seat. Now that Jorel’s dad has had his say on it and there is now more reason for us to investigate further then it is becoming harder for Jorel to say no to this one. “Okay, we could make it Danny’s mission to do that but not before he recovers from yesterday’s fall and he has had some self-defence training,” Jorel says, making a perfectly reasonable compromise. I was all for agreeing to those conditions. It would be handy to know some self-defence and not rely on the guys to save my ass all the time.

“That’s also good Jorel, he needs to know how to protect himself in this line of work anyway but considering he is so new I am accepting that he doesn’t currently know any,” Miles says, he got the report of what happened yesterday afternoon so we didn’t have to explain again. “Jorel, you don’t have to feel bad about letting Matt in last night. It is impossible to know a person’s true intentions when they themselves don’t let you know,” I say, trying to guess his emotions because I have some knowledge on how to read people’s expressions to know how they are feeling, that’s how I knew Aron was angry and to try and get in his good books before he hit me. “I know Danny, I shouldn’t be beating myself up over it but I don’t want to be the reason why the gang gets brought down because someone on the inside manages to take us out,” Jorel says and George nudges me.

Each step I took was very painful but I managed to walk over to Jorel and hugged him tightly to let him know that everything was going to be okay. Jorel hugged me back and I smiled at him. I know he is only second in command to George but being the leader of the mafia’s son brings more responsibilities than your average second in command has. Miles and George were happy to see me walking, “Anyway I gotta make sure that our lunch isn’t burning,” Jorel says and I decide that I am going to follow him into the kitchen and watch him cook for a little while, mainly so I could sit down and not worry about getting up for a little while. “I’ll get the Tylenol after I have stirred this don’t worry Danny,” Jorel says, I think he heard me whimper in pain as I moved.

“It’s okay Jorel, I think I can wait until the food is on the table,” I tell him, I am used to being in this level of pain and never getting pain medication for it because Aron wouldn’t let me have any. He wanted me to suffer and since pain medication like Tylenol removes some of that suffering he would always deny it until I was literally crying in agony, even then he didn’t really want me to be pain free but someone called the cops because they heard me scream in pain one time so when it got the crying point he’d have to give in or I’d get close to screaming and he didn’t want that at the time. “I know Danny, but I want to give them to you now while I have some time,” he tells me and a minute later there were two tablets and a glass of orange juice in front of me. I took them straight away and two minutes after that everyone joined us for lunch.

Dylan had just woken up and he was rubbing his eyes. Miles has left to go and find my mother, but he was invited for lunch. He had to politely deny because he got a lead but he told me to try not to get my hopes up until he had actually found her. Dylan noticed that I was awake and he came over to snuggle me so I hugged him back. “Sleep good babe?” I ask him and he smiled. “Yeah, I just thought all of last night that someone was going to come and take you away from me. I had to make sure you were safe,” Dylan answers as I shoved a forkful of mac and cheese in my mouth. Jorel didn’t like what he heard. “Penny for your thoughts there Jorel?” George asks, I bet it had something to do with Matt.

“We have to be very careful with what we let Matt know about what goes on in this place. All the bad vibes that we have been getting and the worrying that has been happing last night has been after he showed up and what my dad had to tell me about him acting all suspicious this morning has got me thinking,” Jorel says and Dylan was surprised. “So, what you are telling me here is that Matt has gone to the dark side possibly?” Dylan asks and I nodded. “Most likely, we don’t know actually what happened to him while he was missing. He could be working for Aron for all we know so I think Jorel is right, caution is needed here,” I tell him. They were impressed by my logic and my thinking on situations like this that I have been dumped into.

“Yeah, and the only way we can know for sure is by sweeping the house. We need to check for any bugs around if you know what I mean. Our phones will need to be checked,” George says, keeping his voice low. We were talking in between bites of food. “Well, while the rest of us strip search the house, I will teach Danny how to search our phones and he can stay in the tech room and do that. I don’t think he can stand for long enough to search through a room,” Jordon says just as low as George did and I couldn’t argue with the plan. Walking from the living room to here was bad enough for me. “Fair enough, how difficult is it going to be?” I ask them. Not knowing what I need to do to help them find any possible bugs on our phones.

“Not too hard Danny, once you get the hang of it then it is easy to do and you will get it done in no time and then you can walk to the living room afterwards and have total control of the television. We’ll start down here and make our way up,” Jorel says and I smile. I learn quite quickly so hopefully I can get the hang of it so I can help the guys out after all they have done to help me. “Yeah, and now I have thought about more I can safely considering hiring Jess for some one on one defence training when Danny’s healed up a bit,” George says, making the decision as the leader and taking into account what is best for me. So once that is out of the way we could start making arrangements for Matt and I to meet up and for me to try and figure out what he is up to.

After lunch I managed to limp my way to the tech room which was luckily on the same floor as the one we are already on. Every single phone in the house that is used has to be checked, even the landline phones. We don’t know what Matt might have done while we were sleeping last night and he was up a little bit before George was this morning. I know Dylan stayed up all night but there could have been moments where he was so focused on me that he wasn’t focused on the world around him. Jorel taught me how to do the specific test you needed to do if your phone was bugged and made me do it on his so he knew I knew what to do. Then he made me do it twice more in front of him while he was checking the room we were in.

In the end after hours of searching we didn’t find anything which is a blessing. Matt is still someone to watch out for and to trust with a ten-foot barge pole but at least he didn’t plant anything suspicious in the house. “Are we overreacting here? We search for four hours and found nothing. Danny nearly fell asleep at least three times,” George says with a sigh at the beginning. I was lying down on one of the couches with a throw blanket over me in case I wanted to take a nap. I didn’t sleep because I am not that tired. “Nah, Matt shows up and we have a lot of reason to be wary of him. It’s a good idea to check for these things anyway. We needed a good bug check anyway,” Jorel says and I smiled. It wasn’t all for nothing and Jorel knew that. I think George was getting tired and a bit stressed out, he didn’t find what he was looking for.

“I’ll get us some pizza for dinner tonight and I’ll actually go to the pizza place and order it there. You never know what might happen,” Jordon says and I noticed he was carrying a small pistol on him. “Okay but keep the pistol out of sight. Last thing I want to do tonight is bail you out of jail because someone saw you with it and got scared,” Jorel says and I knew there would be a lot of stories to come about Jordon and how he has managed to get himself arrested for doing quite stupid things. Maybe they would come out when Jordon is drunk or they have some involvement of alcohol in them based on another story Dylan told me to try and get me to sleep one night. “Yeah yeah whatever, it will be nothing like that time I was found naked by the Hollywood sign,” Jordon replies.

“You were found naked by the cops at the Hollywood sign?” I ask, trying to hold in the laughter like the rest of the guys were doing. I was struggling to believe it however, knowing Jordon as well as I currently know him this could be a total possibility. “Yeah, I might have had too much to drink,” Jordon says, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “Yeah and you were found with a Molotov cocktail saying you had set your dick on fire,” George adds and I couldn’t keep the laughter in anymore. I was chuckling at first and then Jorel started laughing and I started laughing with him. Jordon was not very impressed, but that was because he was being embarrassed. “Right, I’ll go get the food then,” He says and then leaves.

I had calmed down not long after Jordon has left and Dylan has me on his lap now and he was letting me snuggle him. He was still worried about my safety but know that he knows when I am in this house and Matt isn’t around then I am safe. Jorel was installing some extra security measures and making sure that the current ones still work and don’t need replacing. “Yeah, that was a weird day when he did that. The cop will never forget the day he had to tell me that Jordon was saying that his dick was on fire over and over again,” George says. I think he used one of his old bandanas in his drink to make the Molotov. I noticed one of them was missing from the case and he wouldn’t tell me why.

“I have never been drunk so I have no idea what I would act like,” I tell them, speaking the truth and revealing another small piece of information about me which made me clearly different from the three of them that were currently in the house. “One day, once all of this shit is over we will buy a crate of alcohol and drink it here so we can find out what type of drunk you are and then it would be in a controlled environment where you wouldn’t be doing anything to get yourself arrested,” Dylan says and I smiled. I have a sneaking suspicion I could be sentimental drunk but I wouldn’t know for sure until it happens. I was up to date with the pain killers so I wasn’t worried about suddenly crying in agony.

Jordon came back about five minutes after Jorel had finished the security upgrades with pizza and ice cream. George was excited but I know that’s because we got pizza and that is like his all-time favourite food. If you asked George what his favourite food was and you asked him to give you a top five yours would be something like; mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, sweet and sour chicken, egg fried rice and Twizzlers. His would go something like; pizza, papa John’s pizza, pizza hut, dominoes, more pizza. He definitely likes his pizza that much I can tell you. I was given a personal pizza all to myself from dominoes so that I could get some help to put some weight on since I have barely eaten in the last ten years under Aron’s so-called care.

We decide for Jordon’s sake that we wouldn’t mention the whole Molotov, naked, drunk, Hollywood sign incident. We spent some time watching some of F.R.I.E.N.D.S season one while Jorel updated me on the lead that his dad has on my mom. It was certainly more promising than the last time I spoke to him. They were very close to finding out where my mom was and they said it could be sometime soon before they make contact with her and let her know that I am alive and safe. I was starting to get excited but it was quite low key because she might not actually want to see me again after all of this. “Why do we have to have all the weird weeks?” Jorel asks himself after a little while. I was going to blame myself but these guys have had strange things happen to them long before I came into the picture.

“Maybe that is meant to be for us Jorel. Or maybe one day we will go months if not years without a strange incident occurring,” Dylan says and I let out a yawn. I was exhausted and it was starting to show. “Yeah, maybe one day it will all settle down but not right this moment it seems,” Jorel says and I know they all heard me yawn. Then my eyes were starting to close on their own but that was being fuelled by Dylan’s fingers in my hair. “Night Danny, I’ll always protect you,” he tells me and I start falling asleep in his arms. “Night Dylan, I know you will and one day I can protect you,” I mumble as I fall asleep. I heard the guys call our relationship cute but that was really the last thing I was aware of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> I wonder what sneaky little plan Matt has up his sleeves. You’ll just have to wait until next time.


	5. Chapter 4

~~~~~~~~

I am in some kind of forest and it seems to be night time. It is pitch black and I can barely see three feet in front of me. I don’t know why I am here in the middle of the night, but I bet it isn’t going to be good. Then a twig snap coming from a little distance behind me makes me spin around and I see two faces under their own torch light. It was Aron and Matthew and they looked really nasty like they were about to do something to someone and that someone would be me. I thought the best thing to do would be to run away. I know it didn’t work the first time, but it would definitely work out, now right? Well it could always still go wrong, but I was willing to make that mistake. I can defend myself now and it would be fine.

Or maybe it isn’t because they can run, almost as fast as I can but I am not going to keep my head start up for very long. They are going to keep chasing me until I get tired or I am going to fall down, and they will catch me and then who knows what they will do to me. Maybe I won’t care by the time they get to me what happens. I am going to try and last for as long as I can though. Maybe I should have taken the advice of other people and not gone into the woods this late in the night, but this was my mistake to make. And what a massive stupid mistake that I have made tonight. I am going to pay for it in the worst possible way and regret everything that I have done in my entire life up to this point.

This forest doesn’t seem to end as I run through it, jumping over successfully a few logs and tree trunks which have fallen down. Aron was a little bit further behind me but when I looked back for a brief second, I saw that Matt was getting really close to closing in on me and he could knock me down and it would be game over for me. No one knows I am out here, so no one is going to be able to save my stupid ass unless somehow, they wake up during the next few minutes and they are going to race over here and find me this deep into the woods. That is going to be the most unlikely scenario though because they don’t know I left and they were all fast asleep when I left the house a few hours ago. I thought a brief little walk in the woods would help clear my mind but apparently not.

Maybe it would have been safer to walk from the house to the store and back. Yeah, now that I think about it more the walk from here to Walmart and back would have been much better than this. I keep trying not to turn around and see how far those guys are behind me because chances are I will fall, and they will catch up to me and they will most likely kill me. I don’t know how far deep into the forest I am, and I don’t know if there is another side which I can run out to and find someone to help me. I am self-defence and weapon trained now but of course like the idiot I am I left any form of weapon apart from myself at home because I was not prepared to be chased through these woods when I only wanted to go on a walk.

I tripped over once but I quickly managed to scramble back to my feet as my heart raced and I heard them come nearer. They took advantage of that minor slip up to gain on me and to catch up so now I could feel that Matt was very close behind me and my next fall would definitely be the last thing that I would ever do. “You can’t run forever,” I heard Matt shout and it sent shivers down my spine. It was so true though, I can’t run forever and there is nowhere that I can hide that they won’t find me within like 50 seconds of me hiding there so there was no point in looking for a hiding place at this point. Maybe they will give up eventually and leave me alone, yeah. That sounds like a nice idea. Leave me alone.

Well it was clear to me after some more almost tripping as they chased me through a little windy part of the forest that they were not willing to give up anytime soon and I was no closer to any form of road to escape on. I can’t hear any traffic and it unnerved me because I feel like I have been running forever. Another tree trunk nearly sends me flying into a tree, but I managed to regain my balance and I saw Matt fall down which gave me a chance to give myself one little boost to see if I can make a good bit of distance away from them. Matt didn’t scramble up to his feet as quickly as I did but I heard that he had done it when I was a few meters away from the psychotic duo. There was really no other way that I felt best described them at this point.

They truly have been acting like psychopaths this entire chase so far and I hated it. Well I know that I shouldn’t expect that the people who are chasing me like this were going to be friendly but these two were on a whole other level of crazy. I could hear Aron’s demonic laugh from here. Like when Matt shouted at me it sent shivers down my spine and I wanted to pick up my pace, so I could run far, far away from the pair of them. I attempted but the burning in my calves tells me that this is as fast as I can run right now. It was also certain that no one was going to rescue me, so I was beginning to lose hope which made my body tell me to slow down and give in, let them win. Let them take me and do all the horrible things that they most likely have planned in their sadistic minds.

I didn’t see a tree trunk fall down as we were running so as a result I tripped right over it as soon as it was in my path. I sort of half front-flipped over it and landed on unsteady feet, but I was able to continue running and it stalled Matt and Aron who had now caught up with one another, but Matt was still leading the chase on me. Aron was just there to do whatever he wanted to do with me. Maybe he would make Matt hurt me too because it was clear to me that he had gone to the dark side now and there were no cookies in the dark side this time. Maybe they were going to go after the others after they were finished with me. They know where the guys live now so it would be very easy for them to just walk over there and plant explosives or somethings and then the gang is destroyed just like we all feared.

“Come on just give in already, you know you can’t win against us!” Matt shouts and I don’t act like I have heard what he has said. I have a little more faith left that I am clinging desperately onto in hopes somehow, I can make it out of this alive. I know the hope and faith that I have is slipping away every minute that passes but I am going to cling to it for as long as I possibly can just because I don’t want to lose, and I don’t want to give them a reason to win. I am a Lion and I am strong, and I will defeat them. I haven’t replied to them and I don’t want to. I am more focused on running away from those creepy fuckers to come up with a witty reply to anything that they have been yelling at me. Maybe if I wasn’t running for my life then I would come up with something witty.

It was like life was throwing more obstacles at me or like they were throwing more things to trip over in my way. I was trying to dodge all of them or jump over them and land stably enough so that I could keep running without wasting any of the precious seconds that I have. That didn’t last long enough for me because I tripped once more but I was grabbed by Matt, so it was truly game over now. “I wish this could have gone better for us. You could have joined us you know. We wouldn’t have to do this if you were on our side,” he tells me, and I knew he was angry and so was Aron, but Aron was always angry at anyone who wasn’t on his side. “You should never have crossed me, now you will pay.” Aron says, and I wanted to hide but it was impossible.

I saw my life flash before my eyes. I am going to die, he isn’t going to let me leave this with a slap on the wrist. I left him for the others and he wasn’t going to forgive me for that. I was his toy and only his toy. I wasn’t something to be shared I was only meant to be exclusive to him. We are quite deep in these woods so even when I get reported missing they are going to have a while before they find my body. I saw Aron pull a pistol out of the pocket of his jeans and he aimed it right close to my forehead. I could feel the metal against my skin, he was really going through with this. I was really going to die right now and there was nothing I could say or do to make the psychopath change his mind now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Danny p.o.v

I bolt up and a fear filled scream left my lips. Man, I have not had a nightmare like that for some time now. It is usually because Dylan is here next to me and being close to him makes me feel safe. It felt so real but that is because I know that the two in my dream are more than capable of doing something like that to me or anyone. I roll over, expecting Dylan to be there but he would have comforted me by now as tears roll quickly down my cheeks. I decide to get up and see if anyone else is here that I could talk to about the night terror that I just had so they could help me calm down and tell me that it was nothing but a dream. I couldn’t hear anyone, I couldn’t even here the snoring as I walked to each room to see where they were.

I was starting to get more panicked now because all I could hear was silence and none of the guys were in their beds. I checked my phone when I felt a little better and through the blurriness of my tears I could see that it was only four am. They would still be asleep if they were still in the house, but they don’t seem to be anyway. I went downstairs, and I was still crying but I was trying to be as quiet as possible in case there was an intruder anywhere in the house and they took the guys or something. I thought I was overreacting but since I couldn’t find anyone I felt better about freaking out. I curl up tightly on the couch and sob while I wait for someone to find me in this massive empty house. I don’t think after that night terror that I could go safely back to sleep without seeing that horrible dream again and I didn’t want to have that night terror again.

“Danny, are you okay?” I heard someone ask me and when I looked up despite the fact that I was still crying my heart out I had to squint at the bright light that entered the room. I looked up at saw Jorel’s very concerned face and I never felt so grateful to see one of the guys. I could barely see as it is, but I recognised Jorel’s voice. “I’m fine,” I tell him, but my voice told them the truth. I was not okay I was far from okay and they now knew it. I didn’t go back to sleep after that night terror and I think a few hours has passed now since everyone has come home. Dylan came and sat next to me on the couch and played with my hair for a minute before decided it was better if I was in his lap with his arms around me as I finally managed to stop crying with his help.

I looked a mess with the red puffy eyes and the little red nose, but I just spend the last four hours at least crying so I was going to look like a mess. Dylan was rocking me whilst he was holding me tightly to his chest and the guys were worried about me. “Danny what happened?” Dylan asks me, and I didn’t know if I was going to answer him or not. The night terror itself was stupid and then there was me completely freaking out over the guys not being here was stupid. I am twenty-four years old. I should be able to take care of myself and not rely on other people for the basic stuff like I was actually twenty years younger than I am. “Danny, no one is going to judge you for anything that happened to you last night. Something upsetting must have happened because we thought you would have still been sleeping by now,” Jorel says and it almost convinced me.

Dylan wiped the last of my tears away and placed a delicate kiss on my temple and that was enough for me to cave and tell them what happened. I described to them the night terror that I had, and I stuttered the entire way through that. Then I told them what happened when I had woken up which led to me panicking even more and that was enough for them to suddenly look at me with guilty faces. “Aw my god Danny, we are so sorry. We went to chase a lead on your mom, so she would know where to find you, but we missed her, and we didn’t know that was going to happen. One of us should have stayed with you,” Jorel says and I looked at him before resting my head on Dylan’s shoulder. I didn’t want them to bend over backwards to accommodate me and my stupidity.

“You can’t predict a night terror, even one so violent like Danny’s was. You can’t go to bed and suddenly decide that you are having a nightmare. Maybe for next time we leave during the night we will make someone stay behind but it might not be necessary all the time,” George explains, and I was tempted to agree with him. Maybe when I am better I won’t be having these stupid nightmares and I won’t need the guys to baby me to make me feel better. “But I shouldn’t have to rely on you guys like this. I should be able to take care of myself,” I tell them, and Dylan hugged me a little tighter than he did before. “We know Danny but sometimes even if we can take care of ourselves just fine sometimes we need the comfort that you can only get with someone else being around. It doesn’t make you any weaker,” Jorel says and I couldn’t deny it.

“When did you wake up? I doubt you’ve been back to sleep since then,” Jordon comments when I yawned. “I think it was four am, but I don’t want to go back to sleep,” I say mumbling the last part. Dylan rubs my back and he heard my mumbling. “I think you should at least attempt to sleep again Danny. I will be holding you the entire time this time don’t worry. We aren’t doing anything today because you are still recovering from last week, so you can sleep a little,” Dylan tells me, and he makes sure that we are lying down on one of the couches. “I really don’t want to,” I tell him, my voice giving away how scared I was of having that same nightmare again. Dylan was still rubbing my back and they were concerned by how I was reacting, but I was freaking out for quite some time before they arrived back.

“I’ll go make him a drink which might make him feel a little better,” Jorel says and George suggests that we go and lie down on the recliner chair instead because then I can lie down on Dylan and drink the drink Jorel has gone to make me without any risk of me chocking on it. “Maybe Danny’s dream is trying to tell us something,” Jordon says, he hadn’t really comment on the matter until now, but I knew someone was bound to draw that conclusion. “Yeah, maybe you are right. We are very sceptical of Matthew right now, so I think it is safe to say that we shouldn’t be letting Matthew anywhere near us and maybe consider moving to a new location as soon as it is safe to,” George says, and I bury my head in Dylan’s chest. I hated all of this and I felt like all of this was my fault.

“Yeah, I’ll ask my dad about relocating as soon as we can. Danny none of this is your fault, if we are talking about Matthew crossing us then he would have done it anyway regardless of whether or not you were with us at the time,” Jorel says when he walks back in and he puts his hand on my back which made me look at him and then he made me face him, so Dylan could hold the mug to my lips while I drunk it. I didn’t know what it was at first but after a couple of sips I discovered that it was warm milk with honey in it. Jorel smiled as he watched me drink it and my eyes were getting a little heavier as I was getting sleepier. Whatever plan they had to get me to sleep was certainly working and I couldn’t stop myself dozing off.

Dylan kept the mug of warm milk to my lips until I had finished it all. He put it down and kissed my temple. My eyes were closing against my will and I knew they were winning and I was losing my battle against sleep. I didn’t even know what time it was, but something told me it was probably half eight in the morning or something. “Shh Danny, just close your eyes,” Dylan tells me, and I let my eyes just close and I didn’t bother opening them. I felt safe in Dylan’s arms and he was there to protect me so maybe now I can fall asleep and everything will be fine. I felt a warm fleece blanket get tucked around me and the chuckle told me that George was the one who was sorting that out. “There you go cub, all nice and comfy,” he tells me, and I gave him a small smile without opening my eyes.

George started calling me his little cub recently because of how I have been mentored by him and he was teaching me how to defend myself. He’s like the big lion teaching the cub how to hunt and the cub is me. I had managed to fall asleep and I was praying to anyone out there that the night terror didn’t come back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 3 hours later~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dylan p.o.v

Little Danny has been sleeping for the last three hours on top of me which is good because he really needed this sleep. I have noticed he hasn’t fallen asleep until early morning like between the hours of 2 and 4 in the morning but he would always wake up with me at 7 and eventually he would get so tired he’d have to have an afternoon nap. These violent night terrors he has been having this last week so have been really heart breaking but it never really got to the point where he would dream about those two murdering him until last night. It made me feel guilty because a good boyfriend would have been there for his partner while they were suffering but I only made it worse when I went out to make it better by trying to find his momma for him.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Jordon asks me, I was focusing on Danny and how peaceful he now was in his sleep compared to how he would have been when he was having the night terror before while we are out looking for his mom. I sighed and ruffled Danny’s hair. “I just really feel guilty because we weren’t there for Danny when he had his night terror,” I tell him, and Jordon gave me a smile. “I know you feel guilty, but you can’t beat yourself up over it because we didn’t know that Danny was going to have the nightmare last night, it could have been any other night,” he tells me. Danny was completely out for the count and where his head was resting on my chest facing my neck and his mouth was open a little bit, so I could feel his breaths on my neck.

I loved how I could calm him down so easily when he was so scared when he first came into our lives and now he is getting confident and he is showing more of his own unique personality. “I know but you can’t help but think it. Now Danny’s sleeping better I can feel a little more relaxed about it, but it still doesn’t make me feel completely better about all of this,” I tell him. I was so thankful that Danny wasn’t aware of this situation or this conversation whatsoever. He wasn’t going to remember much about what happened this morning because he was so tired he probably wasn’t paying attention as well due to how much panic he was in when we found him this morning. I felt awful for leaving him to cry four over four hours straight without us being there to calm him down.

“Yeah, maybe Danny won’t remember much after the nightmare which would be the best thing possible. Maybe later he would even forget the nightmare he had which would be even better,” Jordon tells me, and I nod. “Yeah, he might do but he has had that night terror before, but it didn’t get as far as it did earlier this morning,” I tell him, remembering the other times that Danny has told me he dreamed of Aron chasing him through the forest and only recently did he start dreaming of Matt chasing him through the forest as well. I told that to Jordon who just listened. Jorel was talking to Jess with Miles and George was preparing a training area so that she could see how Danny was doing with his self-defence. “So, since he’s been chased he’s been having these or have they been since he’s been rescued?” Jordon asks me, and I have to think about it because in the month or, so Danny has been with us he has had several nightmares.

“The chasing ones have been since he was chased but he has had so many different nightmares since we rescued him. It makes me wonder if we are actually helping him, but I know it is going to take some time before he recovers from ten years of abuse from Aron and god knows maybe fourteen years of abuse from several other people before him,” I tell Jordon who understood where I was coming from. We can’t erase all of Danny’s issues overnight and it was definitely clear to see now. At least we can give him moments of comfort and show him that people do care despite all the suffering he goes through. “Yeah, it is gonna take some time but once he is over it, he is not going to look back once. He apricates all the help he is being given even if we can’t see the results of it just yet,” Jordon says and George walks in.

I know I said before we weren’t going to do anything today but the training with Jess is just going to be really light because she is aware of his leg injury which is still healing. We will wake Danny up when he needs to be up and doing stuff but for now we are letting him sleep. George was walking through to the kitchen, but he stopped to check on Danny first. “We will give him another hour before he has to wake up for a bit. I have the room all set up but there is still a meeting going on with Jess, Jay and Miles. I think Danny’s night terrors have been mentioned just because it could be sign of something worse to come,” George says, and I wrap my arms around Danny tighter, still blissfully unaware of the war we might have just dragged him into.

“So, we are just treating Matt like he has betrayed us now?” Jordon asks, feeling a little heartbroken as Matthew used to date him but conveniently broke up with Jordon just before his supposed “murder” a few years ago. “Yeah, just think about it Jord, he broke up with you then he disappeared, something very fishy is going on here and I don’t think we can safely trust Matt anymore,” I tell him, and I felt sorry for the guy. He is not having much luck in love at the moment. “I guess so, I never thought about it that way before now. I should have though, thank you Dylan,” he tells me, and he hugs Danny and I close to him without waking Danny which wasn’t that hard. “Hey, don’t feel bad about it Jordon. We only start to put the pieces together last week so we all didn’t know about what Matt might end up doing,” George tells us, making Jordon feel better.

An hour passed, and it was time for Danny to wake up now. He was very groggy when I shook his shoulder to wake him up but that was understandable because he had a nasty nightmare and he barely slept so when he finally fell asleep he wasn’t willing to wake up. “You have to do a small task with Jess now Danny then you can go back to sleep if you want to,” I tell him, and he nuzzles into my neck. “Okay, I think I’ll be okay,” Danny tells me, and he looks at me, adorable brown eyes staring into mine. I fell more in love with him by the second. “Alright Danny, I am still sorry about before by the way,” I tell him, and he smiled at me. “You don’t need to be sorry, but I accept it anyway,” he tells me, and I chuckled.

George was going to get Danny to try these new contact lenses out sometime next week. Like that nightmare he had back in the first full week of him being here they were going to make his eyes look blue, but it was all part of our disguise plan for Danny so even if he has a close call with Aron again it isn’t going to be very easy for the older man to know who the male he is holding is. Danny was already wearing hoodies which covered all of his arm tattoos which is good, but we need to do a little work on the face while he is establishing himself in the gang ranks as Golden Beast. I am not saying that my boyfriend is not pretty, cute, hot or adorable because he is all of those things, but Aron knows what he looks like, so it would be easier to find him unless we made him wear a bandanna and change the colour of his eyes with contact lenses.

Maybe Jessica could give us some tips, that woman is the master of disguise which is how she and her partner in crime Airia have managed to remain undetected for the last 10 years. That is longer than most male experts in the industry they work in I must say. I bet Miles was seeing whether or not Jess would be the perfect dating partner to his son Jorel. I know they both have feelings for each other. I don’t know if Miles would approve though because of the nature of Jess’ job would mean she’d have to move a lot and Jorel has to stay to keep his territory. Then Jorel and Jess walk out of the conference room holding hands, I suppose that Miles has let them get together at last. Jorel was surprised to see Danny awake and looking a whole lot happier than when we first saw the blonde this morning.

“Hey Danny, feeling better now after that sleep?” Jorel asks and pulls his “younger brother” up from my lap and into a tight hug. If adoption of a twenty-four-year-old male was possible I swear Miles would have already done it by now with Danny. He treats my boyfriend like the son he has never had and Jorel treats him like he is the brother he has been missing since Evan died. “Yeah, I am feeling a lot better now. I also just realised I could have called you guys, but I was in so much panic when it all happened I didn’t even think about doing it,” Danny says, and I pull him back down for a cuddle. “Yeah or we could have called you to check on you if we knew you were awake. We will make sure that this doesn’t happen again,” Jorel tells Danny which is the truth, we really want Danny to feel safe and comfortable here.

“So, uh, you two just became a thing?” I ask and the pair blush which confirmed my thoughts. “That’s cute,” Danny comments which made Jorel smile at him. “Not half as cute as you and Dylan there Danny-bear,” Jorel says and Danny starts blushing. It is the first time in a long time that I have seen Danny blush and I had to say he looked very cute. “Yeah, Danny is very cute,” I say, and it doesn’t help Danny and his blush. It got worse and he hid his face in my chest. “I’m not cute!” Danny says, and it was mumbled with his head being buried into my chest. “Yes, you are Danny, don’t deny it. It is not a bad thing though my love,” I tell him, and he looks at me with a little smile as he felt a little better about himself.

Jess introduced herself to Danny and they got to know each other a little more. Danny felt comfortable with her being his protector and her to teach him some of her skills in combat, so he can defend himself and not rely on us all the time. Then Danny limped to the room where he is having a little training session and Jess felt a little bad for making him do this, but he kept telling us all that he was fine. He has been limping since last week, but he keeps telling me that he is fine, and I knew the injuries run muscle deep at least and it is going to take some time to heal from that even though the cut might be gone. He got changed into some light workout gear which slightly showed the bandage on his leg, but he wasn’t fussed at all.

They did a little warm up work out together so that Danny wasn’t going to be too sore in the morning. He was going to be sore anyway, but he isn’t going to feel it worse because of the exercise he was about to do. They started off lightly with some hits and blocks for beginners which Danny aced like usual. Then Jess was teaching him some new things which would help him if he was being jumped by someone. It would be helpful should Aron show his ugly mug again which I really hope won’t happen. Miles Decker was watching on to see what Danny’s abilities would be in combat. Then we would have an in-depth discussion with Miles about what our plan should be with Aron and Matthew now we have more evidence that Matthew has sided with Aron.

Danny flopped onto the mat after their training session was done. I do believe the pain in Danny’s legs was acting up. I sat next to him and rubbed Danny’s arm and he gave me a small smile. “How does your leg feel now Danny. You did really well with Jess though,” I tell him, and he winces as he stretches his leg out a little bit. “My leg hurts a bit, but I know that’s cause the muscle hasn’t healed yet,” Danny tells me and then makes an impromptu snuggle while we were sitting or lying in his case on the training mat. Miles hands Danny some prescription pain killers we got Danny a couple of days after the attack and some orange juice. “Just take these and rest up a little bit, we don’t have to have the meeting until after Jordon gets back from the weekly shop,” Mr Decker says, and it is weird how domestic this stuff can be sometimes.

We need everyone to be here anyway. That way, we can share all the information on the situation that we know about because everyone won’t know the same thing. For example, Jordon might have discovered new information that he can share with us or there might be some things Jorel knows about the situation that we don’t yet. Either way we are going to find a way to safely eliminate the threat to our lives and the safety and future of the gang. George threw a bag of chips at us both and Danny started eating his since he knew that was going to help him take the pain in his leg away faster than if he didn’t eat when he took the pain medication. He smiled at me and I knew the pain medication was starting to work.

Jordon had arrived at home just in time and I helped him put away the groceries before the little meeting starts. George decided when it was time to head to the meeting that Danny wasn’t going to limp to the conference room and that George was going to carry the youngest member of the gang to the conference room to save him from being in pain from the leg injury. George carried Danny all the way to his chair next to me and placed him down as I got there. Jordon sat on the other side of George and I was sitting next to Danny and Jorel and Jessica were sitting together. Miles took the head of the table position since he is the highest ranking here as he is the Mafia Godfather. J-dog is the Dogfather for being the head of the undead.

We had to decide that Matthew and Aron are now both targets to be eliminated when someone who is able to either kill them on sight or neutralise them so that they die without us being caught. If we were to shoot either of them on sight, we could get caught by the cops, so we have to plan how we are going to do it when the time comes. Jordon is still upset since he is still in love with Matthew and now we are talking about killing his ex-lover. Danny seemed to pick up on Jordon’s mood change and managed to hobble over to the older male to hug him tightly. He didn’t know that Jordon and Matthew dated once upon a time. He was still being the caring little guy that I know and love. “Aw thanks Danny, I wish Matt never changed sides,” Jordon says.

“I know Jordon, he might have always been wanting to change sides for a while when he did, but you can’t deny the good memories you have together,” Danny tells Jordon and I smiled. Danny has always been able to make people happy even when he doesn’t feel happy himself. Danny limped back over to me afterwards and I gave him a kiss on the cheek. He smiled at me and I wish we could snuggle more but we still have some meeting objectives to talk about. “I think there is one more important matter to bring to the table,” Miles Decker says, and I can see Jorel smiling. “I think it is time to say that Danny has earned himself a place in the official Undead gang ranks now. We can safely say that Golden Beast is a permanent member of the gang,” Jorel says and Danny looked in total shock.

Danny is finally free from the slave title he has held all of his life up to now and it is all thanks to Jorel and George for making that decision that night to kidnap Danny and bring him here with every intention to make him work for us in the lower ranks, but he has grown on us to earn himself a place in the higher ranks alongside us. “Oh, wow guys, I don’t know what to say except thank you. I wasn’t expecting you guys to accept me to be as high up as you,” he says, and I hug my boyfriend. “You’re welcome Danny. We have accepted you because you have proven yourself to be deserving of the rank that you have been given. You are a valued member of the gang now and we enjoy having you around,” George tells Danny who smiles. With that being out of the way the meeting was over and we can spend the rest of the day relaxing.

I watched George carry Danny back to the living room, so we could all sit and watch the TV together while the respective couples get some snuggle time in. Danny was starting to get a little sleepy, but he stayed awake for the film we watched and even stayed awake through dinner before falling asleep at nine pm in my arms. “I am never letting him go at night again,” I tell George who was watching me hold my boyfriend protectively on the recliner chair. “I know you won’t Dylan, with you by his side he will recover in no time,” George says, and I smiled at him. He always has the best things to say when you need to have some reassurance.

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> And that brings the end of chapter four I hope you enjoyed. This means we only have 6 chapters left until the end of this story!! What do ya think??


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is chapter 5 out of 10 for this story and I hope that people are enjoying it so far. There is going to be an epilogue once this is all over to neatly wrap things up. Due to this story having a prologue and an epilogue there will be twelve parts in total.
> 
> This is set about a month after the last chapter..
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Danny p.o.v

"Are you sure you know what to do Danny?" Jorel asks me, he just gave me a mission to go on today to get some technical devices that I probably wouldn't understand how in the world they worked, but Jorel said Miles gave him some money to make our new base more technologically advanced. He was going all out to make it the dream hideout possible, I was going to have a room with Dylan which we have planned, and we know what furniture is going where and the others have done the same. We are moving into it in a couple of weeks' time once all the decorating has been done and all the new security measures are in place to protect us all. "Yeah, just go to Mark and hand him the note you gave me and remember the passcode if he asks me for it," I reply, making him smile because I did remember what he said.

"Good, I have enough faith that you'll be fine. This is one of the lighter missions anyway, I am not sending anyone on a heavier mission until Aron is fucking gone," Jorel says, he was angry. They did find my mom, but Aron got to her first and well, my mom is not here anymore. At least she died knowing I am in the safest hands possible. Dylan wrapped his arms around my torso and rested his head on my shoulder for a brief moment before he moved to kiss me on the cheek. I turned over in his grip and buried my face into his shoulder. Her funeral was only a week ago and I was still grieving, but I convinced Jorel to let me go on a mission for him since Jordon and George were spending more time making sure the new base is ready.

"You don't have to do this Danny. If you need more time then I can go instead or go with you," Dylan says, he gets upset when I am because there isn't a lot he can do to take the pain away. He just holds me tightly against him while I sob myself to sleep each night because if I went back to Aron then maybe she wouldn't have died, and I felt a lot of guilt over it. Miles and Jorel have both told me that I shouldn't feel guilty about it, but I couldn't help it. Mario is Miles' second in command, but from what I have experienced around him so far is that he is a right dickhead, well he is to me anyway. "I'll be okay Dylan. I have to start moving on," I tell him, and I felt Jorel's hand on my back. "Well, you don't have to push yourself to please us Danny. We aren't going to be made or hurt you if you say you aren't ready." He tells me.

I was all ready for the mission. Jorel phoned ahead to say a blonde with blue eyes answering to the name of Golden Beast was going to come along to collect the equipment and I was sort of new. I had my contacts in and I was all ready to go. "I think I will be okay, I can always text you guys if I need you for anything right?" I ask the two older men, who both nodded at me. "Of course you can Danny. I don't doubt that you could do this, but it doesn't stop us from worrying about you" Dylan says, which is fair enough. The whole truth about the nature of the torture and abuse I suffered at Aron's filthy hands was only fully revealed just before we found out my mom died so they were very protective over me.

"Yeah, I know. I will try and keep myself safe and disguised from anyone who could hurt me," I tell him. It was good for them to have that reassurance that I was going to try everything in my power to keep myself safe while I am on the mission. I was then allowed to leave and go on this mission. The tech place isn't too far from the base, so I know how to get there and back quite easily. Jorel has prepared me for this by taking me there and back a couple of times and if I get lost I can use the sat nav to get me there and home again if I need to. I gave Dylan a hug and a kiss before I left to hopefully reassure him that I am going to be fine. He's still going to worry about me until I come home, that's just the way the chasing and the nightmares I have been having afterwards have affected us as a couple.

I got near to the place and I am going to park as close to the place in my pick up as possible. I am not drawing any attention to myself by doing so since it will be a quick in and out trip hopefully with all the gear we need. I parked up and got out, I am a little earlier than I was supposed to be, so I might go into Starbucks and get a drink before I have to go in. I decided last minute to go into Starbucks and I bumped into someone, I apologised to them and I tried to disguise my voice so if I saw Matt or Aron then they wouldn't know who I was until the looked at me and saw through my disguise which is unlikely. Even Miles didn't recognise me when he first saw me, he soon realised that it was me because there could only be one other person allowed in the base he didn't recognise straight away. Nothing happened with my little run in with whoever it was.

I ordered my drink and there were no issues, I gave the name Nathaniel because the guy I bumped into followed me in here. I wasn't sure if the guy who followed me in here was following me or not or it was just a coincidence that he was in here. I walked out with my drink in hand and I was going to go back to my truck and spend a little bit of time drinking my order in there before I go into the tech shop to get Jorel's order. Well that was the plan anyway because the guy followed me out and slammed me into the nearest wall, which happened to be an alleyway entrance. It was Matt who had followed me, but even he didn't recognise me at first. "I don't know who you are but I am assuming based on the truck that you work for Jorel," he growls at me. My head was hurting from the impact on the wall, my drink was on the floor now, a waste of money.

"What difference does it make who I work for, I don't know this Jorel person you're talking about anyway," I lied, my voice sounded deeper than he has ever heard it so it was helping me with my story a lot more. As far as I am concerned my disguise is working since he was probably expecting the blonde hair brown eyed Danny who was beardless. I am now blonde with blue eyes and I had a bit of brown stubble appearing which he hasn't seen before. "You might know him by J-dog then, anyways if any of you Undead douches come near me again that will be the last thing you do," he says and I was trying not to shake in his grip, he wouldn't really carry out the threat. Jorel would kill him first. "Whatever," I tell him and he punches me in the gut and I drop to the floor when he lets me go. He kicked me a few times which I bet was going to leave a few bruises and punched me a few times before he was finished with me.

I was going to be a couple of minutes late and my phone rang loudly in my pocket which made Matthew scarper like the coward he is. It was Jorel calling me, probably checking up on me. My truck was in view of the store but I hadn't been able to enter yet and do that job I am supposed to be doing. "Dan, you good?" he asks, I could hear the worry in his voice as he clearly heard me wheeze as I was getting my breath back from being winded. "Yeah, I'm good. I'll explain when I get back. I gotta do the job first," I tell him as I painfully got back onto my feet. He didn't like the little noise I made when I finally got onto my feet. "Alright, just take care of yourself Danny, I don't want a call from a hospital," he tells me and I chuckled. "I can take care of myself, I doubt what happened would make me go to the emergency room," I tell him and he chuckled.

"Sounds like you have a bit of a story to tell me when you get back. Just come back in once piece please Danny," he tells me and I was going to nod but he can't see me over the phone. "I will come back in one piece I promise Jay," I tell him, trying not to say his full name in case Matthew came back, but if he did then my game would be up because he would know who I am now. I am not making any effort to disguise my voice now since I think I feel like I am safe for the moment. "Alright you are keeping that promise. I'll see you at the new base," he tells me that was the one detail that I forgot when he was telling me the stuff. "Yeah, I'll meet you there," I tell him and then the call ended. I rolled my shoulders and took a deep breath.

I walked to the tech shop and the guy that I was supposed to meet was there at the counter. Jorel told me what he looked like and he was looking me up and down. I think I might have been punched in the face a couple of times. "Golden Beast right?" he asks me and I nodded. He hasn't asked for my password or anything but I think Jorel trusts him and in turn he trusts the gang. "Yeah, you're Mark right?" I ask him and he smiles. He took me into the back room and made me sit down. "Yup, that I am. What the heck happened to you? I thought you were just driving here and walking straight in. You look like you've lost a fight with someone," he says and I sighed.

"I had time before I had to show up here so I went to Starbucks and I got ambushed by a traitor on my way here," I tell him, I felt like even though I have known him for like less than five minutes I can trust him. "Ahh J-dog has mentioned it to me before that I can't let Da Kurlzz get any of your guys' orders. Wow, I thought he died years ago," he tells me. Well I suppose he had to be kept in the loop so that he knew who to accept and who to deny when it comes to collection of orders. "Yeah, they all thought so too but about a month or two ago he just randomly showed up at the base and spent the night before leaving again, we think he is working with Deuce," I tell him. I am sure that Jorel has already told Mark all of this, but he probably has a billion other things to think about.

We had a little get to know each other session and he put an ice pack on my lip which had split with my little run in with Matthew. Then he helped me load all the gear into the back of my pick up which was undamaged and we searched for any tracking devices. The vehicle was all clear and safe there was nothing on it that could compromise my safety and the safety of the gang. I texted Jorel to let him know I had the gear and I was heading to the new base where all the gear would be set up before we move there in a couple of weeks' time, most of our stuff is already there so it was just the last few little bits and we were going to leave quite a bit of stuff behind. Jorel said he was glad that I got on with the guy and I had all the gear.

I quickly left and headed towards the new base before Matthew or Aron could find me or come after me. I don't want to be the reason why our new base is compromised before we can even get full use of the modern equipment. I got there in record time and Jorel arrived after me. George and Jordon are already here because they were decorating the people's bedrooms to get everything ready in time. "Let's get the equipment in and hide the truck before we have our little story time," Jorel tells me and I nodded and we got the equipment uncovered, I had to reverse into the garage first and when the garage door closes no one would really know that I had been here unless someone was staging a stake out.

George and Jordon decided to take a break when we got all the equipment into the tech room in our new base. George was helping us out from time to time and I knew he was going to question the state of my face and other bruises I was hiding from them under my t-shirt. "Okay Danny, story time. What happened when you went to the tech guy," Jorel asks when we got some drinks and we were sitting down in the new kitchen. I was tired but I was determined to work through until later on this evening because there is a lot of stuff we need to get done to make this place a new and improved version of the old one. "Well I had some time so I decided I could nip into Starbucks and get a drink, I bumped into someone on the way and the followed me in there," I started, making sure that they were all listening.

"Then I got my drink and walked out. I was going to put the drink in the truck so it would cool down a little bit and I could get the gear. Then the guy followed me out and then slammed me into the wall and I found out it was Matt. He didn't recognise me as far as I know and he believed the lies that I told him and I said I didn't know who you were Jorel. My voice was deeper and he told me anyways if any of you Undead douches come near me again that will be the last thing you do," I tell them, quoting what Matthew had told me word for word. They were shocked and Jorel hugged me close to him. Basically our lives have just been threatened and I believed that he could possibly carry out the threat. "Damn, I hope he didn't rough you up too much. It does look like he has roughed you up a little bit though," George tells me.

"He got me a little bit, it was just punches and kicks mainly. I just have bruises as far as I know," I tell him and George decided to take a look at my torso just to double check. It was like nothing I haven't experienced before and I was used to the pain that came with it. Aron used to hit me on a daily basis so to go from being punched two or three times a day minimum to being punched once after being away from him for about a month or two now was weird. "Yeah, just bruising on the outside it looks like, you'll be fine once those clear up," George says and I kinda didn't want them to tell Dylan, he worries enough about me as it is. "I don't want Dylan to know though, he worries enough about me as it is at the moment," I tell them and I saw Jorel nod at me.

"He'll see the bruise on your face but he knows you can be clumsy at times. I won't tell him if you don't want me too. He does worry about you enough with all the stress and threats that have been brought with this job and the person who has come after you because you left and all that stuff," Jorel tells me and I was glad that he was on board and the others seem to be as well. George grabbed an ice pack from the freezer draw and pressed it to the lip split which had a bruise around it. My eye was fine, for once. "Let's try and make the bruise go away at least with this slightly colder weather we've been having we can use that as an excuse for the lip split," George says, and I was grateful for that. I always split my lip in the winter time.

My nervous habit has never helped with the state my lip ends up in. I keep picking at it all the time when I feel really nervous. I keep picking at it until it bleeds, and I know I shouldn't be doing it, but I couldn't help it. I couldn't pick it now because I can't get at my lip while George has an ice pack pressed up to my lip. My lip was now going numb from the cold, but I didn't mind it. It meant my lip was on the mend and maybe Dylan won't get all worried. "Danny, I am going to have to let my dad know about your run in with Matt, he might be able to hunt him down and figure out where he got the information from," Jorel tells me and I nod. It was odd that Matthew knew that someone from the gang was going to be there at the tech place at a certain time. "What do you mean where he got the info from?" Jordon asks us, I bet he was feeling slightly confused.

"Well, Matthew as far as we can tell from Danny's story knew that someone from the gang would be at the tech place today and it was a planned ambush. We just need to know how he knows someone would be there," George says, and I tapped him to see if that would send him the signal that I wanted to add something to the conversation and couldn't really speak with the ice pack over my lip. He took it off for the moment and commented that the bruise was going down a lot. "He said to me he was basing it on the fact that he recognised the truck as being a truck that you own Jorel," I tell them, I think I left that bit out of the story, but I can't really remember. "That solves that then. I have a solution to this though, I have been very careful with the money that my dad has given me to do this place up since he has given us this base for free for our safety. I should have enough money to repaint the fleet and get all the number plates legally changed," Jorel says, which I was happy about.

"You were always the wisest of my children Jorel and you still are," Miles says, and I have to admit I did jump a few feet in the air with fear. I was not expecting Miles to walk in, but he does technically own this place, so he does have the right to do this. I nearly headbutted George as well but he lifted me up like a child and I held onto him tightly to calm down and, so he could keep working on trying to get rid of that bruise on my lip. "Thanks dad, it is okay to use the money for the fleet?" Jorel asks, as Miles gave me a little pat on the back. "Yeah that's fine Jorel. The whole redecoration part did include the cars and trucks you own as well. That was always a risk that Matthew would find you based on the fact that the fleet hasn't really changed since you last saw him. That and when he came back he probably had a good look around before he left," Miles says, it does make more sense now.

He hasn't been trying to tap into our communication lines, he's probably been looking at the CCTV to see where the trucks and cars go. He knows what I look like as Nathaniel now, but he doesn't know who I am. He didn't call me by Nathaniel because the whole Starbucks part was quiet, there was hardly a queue and she just called out my order then asked for my name when I got there. I know Nathaniel is quite close to my real name which is Daniel, but I try and get more people to call me Danny then them calling me Daniel. All the bad memories are associated with people calling me Daniel. "According to my sources though, little Nath over there did a good job with keeping his identity a secret. We got someone to talk to Matthew after because he said he saw the beating and would have called the cops on him, but since Matthew didn't know the name of his victim, he just guessed the blonde works for the Undead gang he decided to drop it," Miles says, and I let out a sigh of relief.

I did a good job keeping myself hidden from those who could take me back to Aron which is a thing that no one in the gang wants to happen. We've grown to be a close nit family over the last few months and especially now since my mom is gone like my dad I need a family around me. "Wow, I am very impressed with little Nath, although I never doubted that Danny could pull something like this off. He is a very quick learner and he has taken everything on board that we have been teaching him," George says, and I smiled at them. "Yeah, a shame Matt just beat him for the hell of it, but it is nothing serious and Danny can bounce back from that in no time," Jordon says. It makes me wonder what on earth Aron has been saying to Matthew to be making him act this way. From what the guys have been telling me, Matt has never been this aggressive towards a random stranger.

We had a chat and planned out what the new fleet colours were going to be, they were blue at the moment, so we decided on black for most of them and some of the older models of cars that Jorel has were going to be replaced with some shiny new ones so that we could aid ourselves when we eventually go into hiding. When we move, our gang activity is going on the down low, so that we could get rid of Matt and Aron before we start anything which could spell the end of our lives. We have to go back to the base we currently live in for the meantime, I bet Dylan is losing his mind with worry over me. My bruise is basically non-existent now and all we have to deal with is the slight split I have left.

Dylan called Jorel while we were on the drive home to ask if I was okay and Jorel answered that I was perfectly fine and that I would be home soon enough. I was getting tired because of the fact that I have fallen back into my old routine of barely sleeping or managing to get some decent-ish sleep and then have one of the most horrific nightmares after a while. No one knows about the nightmares I have been having. I tend to keep it to myself and Dylan doesn't wake up, so I just snuggle into him until I calm down enough to either fall back to sleep or he wakes up in the morning and we start our day off. We got home in record time and Dylan was in the garage waiting for us. He walked around to the passenger side where I was sitting in the front. I get car sick and I have been when I sit in the back for almost my whole life now.

He lifted me out of the car and held me tightly to him and rocked me a little bit. Then he had a look at my face and gently touched the split on my lip before kissing it. I kissed him back and smiled. "You have a lot to be proud of with Danny here Dylan. He did so well with his mission and then helped us with some of the redecorating done while we had some time left," Jorel tells us. Dylan smiled at me and rubbed my lip again. "Did you get nervous again Danny?" he asks, and George send a wink my way without Dylan looking. "Yeah, I didn't really know who I was going to see and there is always that thought in the back of my mind that Aron is out there looking for me and wanting to steal me back," I tell him, being honest with everyone in the room. I think Jorel suspected I had this fear, but I mean if you have been in the situation I have, who wouldn't?

"I know Danny, as long as we are around you to protect you then Aron shouldn't be able to get you and Matt wouldn't be able to touch you either," Dylan says, not knowing what actually happened. He was in the middle of making us dinner when he called Jorel to check on me, so we decided to have dinner now at the nice time of 9 pm because we have been working our butts off all day doing different things. I mean, we've had dinner at later times than this, but it's not often because I usually end up falling asleep before half elven at night. After dinner we were going to watch a film but all of a sudden, the power went out, George's immediate reaction was to grab me and hold me close to him and I almost screamed in fear because I wasn't expecting it. "What the heck just happened?" Jordon asks, and I was trying to calm down in George's arms now that I am over the initial scare of him grabbing me without warning.

"I don't know but I am not taking any chances, we still pay for electricity here this month because we move at the beginning of next month, so it can't be that. Maybe something just tripped the fuse box and it will come back on in a minute," George says, and I hear the sound of a gun cocking as Jorel goes to find out the cause of the power outage. I had my phone in my hands and enough battery left on it to be able to call the power company should we need to and find out if it is just our building or other buildings have been affected. Jorel came back about five minutes later and the power wasn't back on. George wasn't letting me go and we were sitting in the living room with candles lit around us. "Seems like it's a street wide issue. I went to check the outside lines and there seems to be a pole on fire and I called the fire brigade to sort it out," Jorel says and then he calls the power company to report the issue.

That's not too bad then, we'll still be safe without any power on. I know George expected the worst when he grabbed me. It is a bit suspect that I saw Matthew today and now the power has gone out. "It's okay George, it's nothing sinister unless somehow they set fire to the pole," Jorel says and then I jumped at the sound of thunder. It's rare in California to get thunderstorms, we are often in a status of drought, so I'm not used to hearing it and I am still jumpy from all the abuse. "It's just a storm then, nothing sinister whatsoever. We should head to bed now though," Jordon says, our plan for the night ruined. We were going to watch a film and then go to bed but since it might take a day or two for the power to come back then there is no way we can watch it.

I got changed into my pjs before Dylan entered the room so that he didn't see the bruises littering my stomach and chest. For all he knows, nothing bad happened and he even said himself the split on my lip was because I picked at it because I got nervous about the mission even though I should have known it was going to go fine other than that run in with Matt. "Are you okay Danny?" Dylan asks me, I was staring out of my bedroom window, the thunder long gone, and all was left was rain and the fire was out as well. "Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" I asked him, and I felt his arms around my waist and his head on my shoulder. "Just looking out for my little bear. You know I know you haven't been sleeping good recently right?" he asks, and I turned around to hug him properly.

"No, I didn't know you knew until now. I thought you were always sleeping when it happened," I tell him, and he kisses me gently and I kiss him back. "Sometimes I wake up when you are awake, and you snuggle up to me and I can hear you crying sometimes but I didn't want to scare you and you'd usually fall asleep when I finally decide that I should let you know that I'm awake," he tells me, and we get into bed, so I could cuddle up to him as much as possible like I usually do. "I just want the nightmares and night terrors to end Dylan, they keep haunting me," I tell him, and he holds me tightly. "I know Danny and one day they will all go away," he says, then we say goodnight to each other and I was first to fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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> 
> Oh shit damn, stuff is about to go down guys!
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> I hope you enjoyed this chapter and see you in the next chapter for more drama than you can shake a stick at.


	7. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys and happy new year to you all!! Sorry all of my updates past new years are a little later than I would have liked but, I have been very ill over Christmas and only now am I feeling better to write stuff.
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Jorel p.o.v

Something isn’t right. In a few short hours we move to our new location, so I know all of our stuff is safe, but something just doesn’t feel right to me. It’s currently half past two in the morning and I can hear a constant beep sound every second. I get out of bed and sure enough I saw two bombs in either corner of my room. Luckily, I have an alarm I can sound which should hopefully wake everyone else up, so we can evacuate in time. I run into Danny’s room since he won’t understand what the alarm means while it’s sounding and there were two bombs in either corner of his room too. He was sitting on the bed, looking very tired with his hands over his ears and tears in his eyes. I felt bad, he hates loud noises and since I thought he was sleeping I didn’t think to warn him about the noise.

Dylan is still sleeping so I shook his shoulder and he bolted up as the sound of the alarm hit his ears and he looked to Danny straight away and pulled him into a hug. “There are real bombs in here and in my room Dylan we have to go,” I tell him, and he picks Danny up and holds him tightly and we run towards the front door. I saw George and Jordon outside when we finally got there, and George looked at Danny who Dylan was struggling to hold. George went over to Dylan just as the explosion happened. I think I just heard Danny scream, but the explosion was louder than his scream. He was so scared, and we couldn’t quite calm him down. I saw my dad arrive and he was scared for a moment until he saw the four of us standing here.

All of our vehicles are at the new base, so my dad said he would come and pick us up later on in the morning to take us to our new base. Now our old base is in flames and Danny is having a panic attack. George is talking to Danny and Dylan and I could hear him trying to convince Danny to let go of Dylan, so he could be supported better. Danny looked at George and held his arms out so that George lifted Danny out of Dylan’s arms and took him into his own. Siren’s wail in the distance as I heard my dad talking to the firefighters on the phone. George was working with Dylan to calm Danny down and I think it was working. I don’t think Danny has actually managed to fall asleep once tonight, so I think after he is all calm and feeling better he will go to sleep.

I walked over to the three males that are all huddled up together because I wanted to check on Danny. His reaction to the bomb alarm was one that I was actually expecting since he does seem to be really sensitive to the sounds around him and the really loud noises bother him a lot. I want to avoid making him upset as much as possible. “Are you feeling any better Danny?” I ask him, and I heard him sniffling, but he wasn’t full on sobbing anymore. I put my hand on the youngest male’s back and started rubbing it to make him feel better. “A little bit, I’m sorry,” he tells us, and we just sat down outside while trying to calm the blonde down. “It’s okay Danny, you’ve never heard the alarms going off before, so it was bound to scare you,” I tell him, and he sniffs again in George’s grip.

The fire brigade arrives, and they are quickly setting up to extinguish the flames. My dad came up to me and told me that he was waiting for the minibus to arrive now, so he can take us to our new base before the person who has done this comes and tries to take us out when they find out that we have survived. “Also, you’re still recovering from all the abuse that you went through, so we are not expecting you to be comfortable with loud sudden noises and sudden explosions that could have ended all our lives,” George says, after my dad spoke to me he went to go and wait for the minibus to show up to take us all away to safety. Maybe we can get Danny to fall asleep on the way there, so he can try and put this incident behind him.

My dad was looking into adopting Danny and even though he is an adult now there are some loopholes he is able to jump through to get Danny in the Decker family, but give him the option to keep his surname if he wants to. That should be completed within the next couple of weeks and then we could tell Danny. I didn’t want to tell Danny now and get his hopes up if this doesn’t manage to work out, so I decided to wait until it was all finalised and everything was perfect. I look to the smoking wreckage of our old base. It was still up in flames but for the most part the fire fighters have started putting it out, but I had heard a couple more explosions coming from the kitchen. Danny is slowly starting to calm down now, and I could see the exhaustion of the night catching up with him. I don’t think he’ll be staying awake much longer.

My dad went up to the minibus as it arrived. He will only, and he means only let the most trusted of his men drive him and his family now which includes me and the gang that surrounds me. I was glad Danny was calmer now but now he was yawning every few minutes and he was comfy in George’s arms. I feel comfortable knowing George is going to be keeping an eye on him while we get to the base because we are going to be nervous about any more people trying to kill us. “Right Kristian will get you to the new base there safe and sound with escorts all around trying to keep you five safe. I am staying here to find out what happened and to see what the firefighters can discover,” Miles tells me, then he rubs Danny’s back.

He’s become quite protective over Danny which is something that Danny was quickly getting used to and enjoying. “Did you see anything Danny?” he asks, I think even my dad could see how tired Danny was. “I saw a shadowy figure when they were placing the bombs, but I pretended to sleep so I couldn’t get spotted, so I didn’t really get a good look at them,” Danny says, and he sounded scared. He was being honest with us though and we know it. We can always look at the security footage later and see if it was Matt or not. “That’s okay Danny, you’ve done nothing wrong. Jorel noticed they were bombs not long after you I am guessing so the alarm was raised in time,” Miles says, and we quickly head to the minibus while pulls away as soon as everyone had their seatbelt on.

Danny was sat between George and Dylan and I was next to Jordon. The other two were focusing on seeing if they could get Danny to sleep. “I think it was Matt you know, he was the only one out of him and Aron who knew where that place was and entrances that we didn’t cover when we did that security upgrade after he came back and left again,” Jordon says, having the same suspicions as me. I forgot about the hidden entrances until now, but it seems like our attempted assassin didn’t. We have cameras down there anyway, so if it was Matt we would know by late tomorrow. We didn’t even hang around long enough for them to see us leaving, no doubt Matt would be there with Aron to watch their plan unfold.

That explains why my dad was there with all that extra security around him. He didn’t want to get hurt in the meantime since we are all on edge at the moment. “I think so too, I don’t blame Danny one bit for what happened in his room. He was trying to keep himself and us safe, so I can understand why Danny didn’t get a good look at him,” I tell Jordon, a bit later once Danny has slept I will tell him that he wasn’t in any trouble with what happened tonight. I know that is in the back of his mind as we drive to the new base and George and Dylan will tell him that it isn’t his fault. If I was in that situation where I saw the man in the room I would be acting like I was sleeping so that nothing else would happen.

We arrived at the new base in record time and no one saw us leave the old base or arrive at the new one which was a big relief to me. Danny had finally fallen asleep during the last five minutes of the drive. George carries him from the garage to the house and I tell him to take Danny to his and Dylan’s room, we could all use some sleep after what just happened. Dylan followed George so that he could be there if Danny suddenly wakes up screaming. It’s like 4 in the morning now so we all need some rest. Jordon and I were soon to follow the others up because we are just so tired. I texted my dad to let him know we safely arrived and we were all going to sleep to feel a bit better since we all had a rude awakening.

He was glad that we all got there safely and that we had taken the decision to sleep now. He is still at the scene of the explosion to get the information on what happened exactly since we know there are bombs in mine and Danny’s room but there might be more littered around the old base. I do suspect there might have been a few more. I had the room where the tapes for the security cameras made fireproof just in case something like this was to happen. I told my dad that as I made it to my room so that I could fall asleep. He was grateful for that information since he could go and find that room when the firefighters say that he can go back into the old base and see if there was anything left to save. I am just thankful that I was able to get everyone out on time and everyone is safe and uninjured.

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Next morning ~ Danny p.o.v

I checked my phone and discovered that it is half past eight in the morning. I have only had roughly four hours of sleep, but I can’t sleep anymore. I just have an unsettled feeling and it won’t go away. I blame myself for what happened last night, even though the guys have told me not to. I just feel like there would have something that I could have done to stop that person leaving the bombs everywhere. Dylan is still sleeping away, so I carefully climb out of bed and walk out of the room. I wanted to get a drink, and try to settle my nerves a little bit. I walk into the kitchen and see Jorel and George there. They had more sleep then I have had anyway and are usually up at this hour, so it doesn’t bother them to have less sleep.

They were surprised to see me up so early. “Hey Danny, do you want a drink?” Jorel asks me, when he sees me. “Yes, please Jorel, I feel so nervous and I can’t shake it,” I tell him, being honest again. I watch as he starts to make my drink and George comes to sit next to me. “What’s making you nervous Danny?” George asks me. I feel like talking about it will help me, so then he can tell me how not to feel so stressed about it. “I am just probably over thinking about last night. I just feel like there was something I could have done to stop that,” I tell him, and he hugs me tightly. I know Jorel heard me, but he was busy making my drink. “There is nothing you could have done Danny. There were bombs left on the lower floor as well so even if you stopped them leaving them elsewhere the base still would have gone boom,” George tells me, and Jorel hands me a drink and a tight hug.

“George is right Danny, there was nothing that any of us could do to prevent what happened last night. You shouldn’t feel bad. I am proud of what you managed to tell my dad, any information we can find on who did it is a massive help in catching who did it,” Jorel tells me and I hug him back. I started to drink the hot chocolate with a hint of brandy that Jorel made for me. It helped me with my nerves before now and I could feel it working again. I’m going to try and get through the day without taking a nap so then I will be tired when it gets to night time and I might be able to sleep the night through for once. Dylan knows I barely sleep during the night, but we haven’t found anything to tackle it yet.

I walked into the living room once I had washed my cup out and curled up on the couch. We were on the news. Well the explosions were mentioned but I didn’t see if we had been mentioned. Jorel and George joined me, and we just watched the story of the explosions unfold. I heard the newsreader briefly mention that there were 5 people in the building at the time and their bodies hadn’t been found at this point, so they didn’t know if we are alive or not which would be a big fuck you to Matt and Aron since we have a large reason to believe that they are behind last night’s incident. They would have probably been waiting all night to see if our bodies will have been recovered from the wreckage of the old base.

George was sitting next to me and we were keeping an eye on the report to see what they say about us. I don’t know if Miles is going to roll with the whole the Undead gang died in an explosion or not yet. That’s up for him to decide really and we will roll with the consequences that it will bring with it. Then they brought up a press conference Miles Decker is currently at and told the public that prior to the explosions that we were moved to a safe location and we are now fine, and no one knows where will be living from here on out. That’s going to piss Matt and Aron right off since it is literally whoever kills each other first. It’s going to be 5 against 2 for the main part unless Aron has the knowledge to hire people to take us out.

Once that story was over we just watched telly while we waited for the other two members to wake up. Jorel said he didn’t mind them sleeping through to the afternoon since we were all badly affected by the explosions last night. He was expecting me to sleep longer than I did, but I was just as badly on edge as they were. Would Aron have really dedicated this much time and effort on trying to kill these guys if I was still with him? I doubt it, but I can never know for sure. George was paying attention to the telly, but Jorel was watching me quite closely. “Whatever your thinking about isn’t true Danny,” he says which makes George pay attention for a brief moment. “How do you know Danny is thinking about something that’s nasty?” George asks him.

“I know Danny’s frame of mind. He’s probably wondering if he wasn’t here that what happened last night wouldn’t have happened because Aron wouldn’t have been after us. Aron would have been after us and trying to kill us either way because he hates us. We have always been more successful than he has been and my dad kicking him out of the gang was always going to be the final nail in the coffin,” Jorel tells me. It made me feel a little better but there would have been an additional nail which was me being stolen from him and hired into the gang he got kicked out of. “Jorel’s right you know. Aron has always had that thirst for blood and that isn’t going to change until he gets what he wants. Unfortunately for him I doubt he is going to live long enough to see his wish fulfilled,” George says. He likes backing up what Jorel says and it does make me feel a little better about the self-doubt.

“I know, my mind just keeps going there. It seems like all the problems started when I arrived. I thought that maybe Aron would have been more preoccupied with making my life hell to be going after you,” I tell them, I know Aron would leave every now and then for a day, but that would be like every three or four months. It wasn’t like he was going out daily to plan stuff, he enjoyed controlling me and hurting me when I was even the slightest bit disobedient to him. “He was probably doing both Danny, no doubt he’d probably try and take any chance get gets now to swipe you and keep you as his own again,” Jorel says, the harsh reality of this whole situation. It is now about half past 10 in the morning.

We had been watching whatever morning shows were on after the morning news and not really paying much attention. Miles said he was coming over later just to check up on us all and to let us know what our next moves are. Then Dylan came flying down the stairs in a state of panic, but he quickly calmed down seeing me in between Jorel and George. “He’s alright Dylan, just not really slept much last night,” George says, and Dylan just picks me up and holds me tightly to his chest. I hugged him back and just enjoyed the security that I felt when he holds me. Nothing bad can happen while he is holding me tightly. “I’m okay Dylan,” I tell him, which made him smile. I was exhausted but that was expected.

“I know, I just had a weird dream about last night and then I woke up and Danny was gone, and I thought the dream happened,” Dylan admits, as he sits down on the couch with me still in his arms. “Sorry Dylan. I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t want to wake you since you needed sleep, so I came down here,” I tell him, a little bit of guilt bubbling up inside. It was my fault that my boyfriend woke up panicked and a good boyfriend wouldn’t do that. “Don’t worry about it bear, I know that if you are anywhere with the guys then you are safe and sound,” Dylan says, and I smile at him. Then Jorel disappears to the door and then reappears a few minutes later with three boxes of pizza. I laughed when I saw George get excited like a little kid at Christmas.

“Hopefully Jordon will be up soon, I’d hate for him to miss all the delicious pizza,” Jorel says, intentionally being louder than usual in case Jordon was awake to hear this. If Jordon didn’t arrive at the meal time, then George would end up eating Jordon’s share of the pizza and not even feel guilty of it for one second. Dylan enjoyed feeding me slices of pizza every now and then and Jorel thought it was cute. He misses his girlfriend a bit and he has been texting her all morning so that she knows he is okay because she saw the news while she is with her partner in crime trying to take Matt down and hopefully Aron along with him. Jorel is very happy that I am now settled in and adjusting to life outside of slavery.

It’s weird to say that I have spent a majority of my twenty-four years of life being forced to do things for other people and being punished for not doing as they order me to. I was born into that life, so I never knew what freedom felt like, now that these guys have rescued me I have the perfect chance to live the life that I should have been from the moment I was born. Although until I was about 13 years old I thought slavery was how everyone lived their lives if they were not born into a super-rich family. I knew from a very early age that my mom was poor, and my dad moved away to Costa Rica when I was born because he didn’t want the responsibility of another mouth to feed. Now that I am older and can support myself I wonder if he would ever want to attempt to build a relationship with me.

Jordon came down just before George was about to eat the younger man’s share of the pizza. I still had a slice left of my own share that I knew I was not going to eat so I got up and offered my slice to George who initially refused it until I told him that I literally could not eat any more, so I wanted to give him the pizza. Then he took it and almost ate in one go. I was happy that I could give my friend something that after the horrors of last night put a smile on his face. I still couldn’t really get the image of the man walking into my room and placing bombs down while looking around almost like a meerkat. If Jorel hadn’t noticed the ones in his room since I was too scared to wake them up, then we probably would have died last night.

I know Jorel and George have desperately tried to make me feel better about it, but honestly my self-confidence and self esteem is so low it’s going to take a while for me to truly feel better about myself. I snuggle back up to Dylan and he wraps his arm around me. I was trying to pay attention to what was on the television screen, but I was getting very tired at this point because of the lack of sleep I have been having over the last 3 or 4 days. Well my sleeping issues have been on and off since I arrived but after the whole incident with Matt, Dylan had gotten me into a good sleeping pattern and I slept through the night and until about 9 ish in the morning which is the most I have slept in my whole adult life.

I felt my eyes start to betray me, I didn’t want a nap right now and, yet I felt myself falling asleep in Dylan’s warm, comfortable arms. I felt Dylan’s lips on my cheek and I didn’t even have the energy to kiss him back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dylan p.o.v

I was watching the television with the rest of the gang and my baby bear in my arms. Danny is right where I need him to be and that is right with me. I kissed him on the cheek as I watched him have an internal fight with sleep. After Jorel sounded the alarm last night and I woke up to bombs in the spare room where I was cuddling up to Danny I have been a bit more on edge, I think we all have. “Move him over here in a bit, we need to check the nest footage see if we can identify the guy that Danny pointed out earlier,” George says, and I look down to Danny and saw he had fallen asleep in my arms. His head was sort of flopped to one side on my chest, but he looked very comfortable.

“Okay George, I think Danny would be more comfortable on the couch then lying on my chest anyways,” I tell him, Danny was almost out for the count already which is good. I hope he doesn’t get plagued by nightmares because of the man in our room last night. Now that we are in an unknown location to the enemy we should be a little safer, but it’s too early to let our guard down. “My dad said he’s on his way with the security tapes from the CCTV and the Nest cam backups, so we should be able to figure out who the culprit is pretty soon,” Jorel says, he was looking at his phone until he spoke. I don’t want to wake Danny up for that bit, so he can always catch up when he is awake. He’s still so new to this life not everything that goes on is of interest to him and that’s okay.

He does need to be kept informed of any updates to our plans though. He needs to be aware in case he sees Matt anywhere and has the chance to eliminate him. We can’t let Aron be near Danny because otherwise it is just going to be disastrous for all involved. For now, though Danny is peacefully sleeping in my arms and I couldn’t be happier. I take hold of Danny’s hand and it just felt right that he was here with me right now. “At least Danny is sleeping okay now. I think he went to sleep at ten to 4 last night to only wake up at 8 so considering he hasn’t really slept until then he really needs this right now,” Jorel tells me. He was wide awake when the bomb alarms were sounding last night which surprised me, I thought he would have been sleeping.

“Yeah, at least that whole ordeal is now over, and we can finally start putting it behind us,” Jordon says, he felt sorry for Danny and even tried to help last night while Danny was in his panicked state. We knew what all the alarms sounded like because we did drills back in the beginning, but we hadn’t done any for a while so Danny had no idea. Then someone knocked on the door which almost startled me, but Danny was still out for the count. Jorel went to open the door and George took Danny off me so that we could make him more comfortable on the couch for the time being. When he wakes up he will come wandering around looking for us, but we will never be too far away. I heard Mile’s voice tell Jorel he thought he’d knock to make it easier on us after the hell we’ve been through.

I look to Danny as George covers him with a throw blanket. He is just so pure and innocent, it’s one of the things about him that made me fall in love with him. I am so lucky to have Danny in my life. This is the third time now since he has become mine that something has gone wrong and posed a serious risk to his life. If Jorel or Danny didn’t raise the alarm right now, I don’t think any of us would be here right now. It kinda makes you not take life for granted anymore. This is your life, it’s do or die. The sun may never rise again, so be the light, the vision ~ Danny. My little bear is so musically gifted and fits in with us so well. Maybe one day we can release our own music and have fans adoring us.

I walk into the meeting room where we had everything set up to review the security tapes. 5 pairs of eyes are better than one and maybe we can finally figure out how they broke into the house last night planted the bombs and left again. As we were watching the footage something jumped out to me. I was watching the footage from the tunnels underneath the base that have been there since before we built there. and we used them every now and then. All the original members bar Aron knew off their existence. “I have got something,” I call out and they all pause their videos to look at mine. I rewind the footage to the point just before it picks up that someone was there. I could tell those curls from anywhere.

“That motherfucker, he out played us that time. Fair play on him,” Jorel curses, he saw who it was at the same time I did. “It was Matt then?” Jordon asks, feeling a little confused. I showed him the video. “No doubt it was, he is the only other person that knows of those tunnels outside of this room. Heck not even Danny knows about them,” I tell Jordon, clearing it up for him a little bit. We moved to that base just after we kicked Aron out, so Aron wasn’t around when we discovered those tunnels all those years ago. “I gotta say Matt’s smarter than he looks. It’s just a shame he’s now playing for the wrong team. His knowledge and intelligence could really get him somewhere other than a grave,” George says, he always wants us to do well and to succeed in life and I guess he still feels the same way about Matt.

“Yeah, it’s a shame and when he does finally go it is going to be a great loss to the community, but he has showed us his intentions now and there is no going back. No one attempts to obliterate my family and gets away with it,” Miles says, and I agree with him. We can’t trust Matt now he has attempted to kill us. He can’t come back and join the team, he is too much of a liability. “Speaking of family, how’s the plan coming along?” Jorel asks Miles, which does make us a little confused, but it seems to be family business. “It’s going a lot better than I anticipated, it will all be finalised tomorrow,” Miles says, and I see Jorel’s eyes light up like a kid on Christmas.

“Danny is officially becoming part of the Decker family, it’s going to be a surprise for him when we know everything has been sorted, but we have found a loop hole with the help of his mom’s will that means my dad can legally adopt Danny as his son,” Jorel explains, the smile never leaving his face. Even Miles seems to be really happy. It has been a long time since anyone has seen Miles Decker this happy. “That does also mean that when you and Danny eventually tie the knot you’ll become part of my family too Dylan,” Miles says, and it stuns me. I never thought in a million years Miles Decker was going to accept me into his family. “Wait, who says Danny and I are going to get married?” I ask, and he comes up to me.

“I do, I see the way that Danny looks at you and the way you look at him. You have really found a special relationship with Danny and it has my blessing to last,” Miles says, and then he hugs me. I guess Danny can teach an old dog new tricks. I honestly thought Miles hated me until now. Danny has brought so much love and positivity into everyone’s lives and you wouldn’t even know that he has only been with us for a few months now. It seems like we have been living together for years at this point we just all fit perfectly. “Thank you Mr Decker, I am honoured. I will never break your son’s heart,” I tell him, and he smiles. “Dylan, you can call me Miles you know,” he says and then we get back to talking about the plan at hand.

When all the meeting stuff was over I went to go and check on Danny since he has been sleeping for a couple of hours and I wanted to be close to him when he woke up. When I walked into the living room, I found him still asleep on the couch, but he had rolled onto his side, so I sat with him and just watched what was on the telly until he woke up about half an hour later. “Good nap baby?” I ask him, Miles knew Danny was sleeping since he walked into the living room with Jorel before we went to the meeting room. “Yeah, it feels good to get some decent rest,” Danny says, and he sits up and smiles at me. God, he is just too perfect for me. He’s been through hell all of his life and he still goes through every day with a smile.

“That’s good baby, I am never going to let anyone come near you like that again,” I tell him and then he hugs me tightly. I know he knows how serious last night could have been. He wasn’t crying though which is a good thing. “I know you won’t. I love you Dylan,” he tells me, and I got shivers down my spine. I love it when he tells me he loves me. “I love you too my little precious bear,” I tell him, then I press my lips against his and felt the universe shrink to just the two of us as we kissed on the sofa. When we finished kissing each other, Danny pointed out to me that Miles was in the room watching us. It didn’t feel wrong or creepy to me though. He is just watching his son and future son in law have a little kiss.

I can’t wait to see Danny’s reaction to the adoption news. He knows his birth father never cared about him, so he has no family left now, but us. We will be family to him until the day we die when we are all old and grey. “Hey Danny, how are you feeling now after last night?” Miles asks him. He sat on the sofa with us, very concerned about his son. “I am okay now thanks. Do we know who did it yet?” he asks, the only downside to him missing the meeting was missing us find the footage proving that it was Matt who did this to us. “It was Matt, Danny. In the old base, long before the warehouse was built on it were some tunnels. When we moved in we discovered them and used them to hide and smuggle things when we needed to. Matt was caught on camera footage last night using those tunnels to break in,” I explain.

“I thought it might have been Matt, but since I couldn’t really see who it was I didn’t want to jump to conclusions and be wrong about it. I know Matt is going to die anyway, but I didn’t want it to be for something he hasn’t done,” Danny tells me, and I pull him into another hug. “You’re precious Danny. I like how you are willing to give people a second chance, but I don’t think these guys are going to be saved this time,” I tell him. Miles decided to stick around for dinner and now that we know what is happening tomorrow, I can’t wait to see the smile on Danny’s face when he finds out he has a family now.

Well he does count George and Jordon as family to him, but Jorel is going to legally be his brother from midnight onwards. Jorel and Danny have always been the closest of everyone. They just naturally gravitate towards each other and Danny then spends some time with me afterwards. Danny always says he is going to try and spend his time equally with everyone, but I told him it didn’t matter if he spend less time with me than the others. He always has time with me in the night and we have days where I will take him out. We aren’t cooking today so Jorel is going to get more takeout which is not going to be more pizza. I think I have had enough pizza for one day. I know George can eat pizza all day.

After dinner we finally got to have the movie night we were supposed to have when the power went out in the old base. I know Danny isn’t going to last long like usual, but I love snuggling with him. Miles left after dinner now that he was happy everyone was safe and then I carried Danny up to bed once the films were over. I just want everything to be okay, I don’t want to stress over falling asleep in case some creep tries to blow us up again. “Try get some sleep Dylan, we are safe now I promise,” Jorel says, when he comes into our room to check on us. “Okay Jorel, I’m holding you to that one,” I tell him, and he chuckles before leaving to his own bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> And that is the end of another chapter, hope you enjoyed.


	8. Chapter 7

~Danny p.o.v~

“Hey Danny, I have a present for you,” Jorel says, he sounded stuffed up since he had a cold. The rest of the gang had the stomach flu, but I seem to be fine for now. Knock on wood I don’t get what they’ve got. “Uhh, thanks I guess,” I tell him, as he hands me a card with a box taped underneath it. I opened the box first since Jorel seemed desperate for me to open the card last. Inside the box was a necklace with a heart shaped pendent that “Mom forever in my heart” engraved on it. “We put some of your mom’s ashes in there before we scattered her, so you could have something to keep close to you at all times,” Jorel tells me and I struggle to hold back the tears. Dylan was sitting next to me and he carefully took the necklace out of the box and helped me put it on.

Then I carefully opened the envelope and pulled the card out. It had congratulations and a little mouse on the front of it, like they were a family. I was confused so I looked at Jorel. “Open it Danny, it will explain everything,” Jorel says, I have nothing else I can do but open the card. Inside the card was a little certificate and someone had written a detailed note on the card itself. I am going to take my time reading these, so I can understand what is going on. It’s clear to me that Jorel knows full well what is going on. Despite how ill he has been these last few days he seems to be really excited for me now to figure out myself what’s going on since it is now obvious to me that he isn’t going to tell me anytime.

Daniel,

It is clear to me and the rest of the Hollywood Undead gang that you have grown. You’re not the shy, fragile, broken person you used to be. You are now a strong, independent and brave man and we couldn’t be prouder. I was planning this since Jorel told me of your arrival into the gang but decided to speed things along after your mother tragically passed away at the hands of our enemy. You’ve been a slave your whole life and never had a family, now I am going to give you one. Through some loopholes I have managed to find, I can officially and legally adopt you into the Decker family, making you my son and Jorel, Larissa and the rest of my children your brothers and sisters. I have noticed how close you and Jorel are and how much like brothers you have become so I decided to make it official.

Much love

Miles Decker.

I burst into tears then, tears of happiness. For the last twenty-four years of my life I have never had a family to call my own. My mom was always taken away from me after I turned five and I hated it. I never understood at that age why I had to be taken away from her and made to work for some person I didn’t know and didn’t like me much. It obviously made more sense to me as I grew up but the longing for a family has always been there, lurking in the shadows waiting to attack me with that emotional pain that comes with it. The gang have been like family to me since they found out what Aron has done to me, but I still didn’t feel complete. I needed those mother and father idols everyone else had when I was growing up.

Dylan hugged me and Jorel crouched down in front of me and took my hands. “How’s that brother?” he asks me, and I just smiled at him before hugging him tightly. “It’s the best thing that could ever happen,” I tell him. The other thing inside the card was a certificate which read: This hereby certifies that Daniel Rose Murillo is now the legal son of Miles Decker. Speaking of Miles, he was standing there at the doorway looking at us with a smile on his face. He walks over to us and holds us close to him. I wrap one arm around my new dad and my other arm stayed around my brother. “Good morning my boys,” he tells me, and another round of tears almost starts. No one knows how long I have been waiting for someone to tell me that, for MY father to tell me that.

“Morning dad,” I tell him, it felt right to me even though that was the first time in my life. My biological father never wanted me and made that clear to my mom before she was taken for slavery. He wanted the sex but not the responsibility that comes with having unprotected sex which leads to pregnancy and a baby. He’s never bothered to even contact me or my mom once in my entire life so far and if he tries to find my mom he will be sadly disappointed. “Morning dad,” Jorel says, I look to Dylan who joins the group hug almost straight away. “How are you two this morning? I know you’ve been unwell these last few days,” Miles asks Jorel and Dylan once the hug was over. “I’m feeling a lot better thanks,” Dylan says.

“I’m getting there dad, just got maybe a day more with this cold,” Jorel says, and I smile. We go and sit down on the sofa and I snuggled up to Dylan straight away. “That’s good, let’s hope that Danny doesn’t get what either of you have. All though it was nice of him to look after you both while you’ve been ill,” Miles says, he has been coming over everyday with any new discovered about what happened last month when the old base blew up. I heard that someone had arrested Matthew for it, but he has since been released on bail pending trial. That’s if he manages to live long enough to go to trial and it is basically obvious that he was the one who done it. “Yeah, he’s been a good helper since he arrived a few months ago,” Jorel tells him.

Jordon and George are sleeping off their sickness and I left them some water and some pain pills to hopefully try and make them feel a little bit better. Like Jorel I think they are on the last day of their sickness and hopefully by tomorrow they will both be feeling better and I won’t get sick. “Thank you, dad,” I say, and Miles just smiles at me. “You’re welcome son,” he says, and it made happiness bubble up in side. I was enjoying finally having a father who I can thank for giving me the opportunity to live a life I haven’t had for twenty-three years. “And, I have to say thank you to Jorel for kidnapping me into the best family I have ever had,” I tell them, which made everyone laugh. It’s true though, if Jorel and George never took me from that hell hole that night then I wouldn’t be alive right now and definitely not the person they see today.

“You’re very welcome Danny, I’m glad we kidnapped you from that place,” Jorel says and Dylan just holds me a little tighter. He was the one who hated what happened to me the most after my new family. He was just shocked that someone could be a slave in the modern day. I told him that I was passed through several traveller/gipsy type camps that did it often and then I would get passed to somewhere else just as the police show up and lock them up and free the slaves. After I told him some of my experiences he told me that he was going to hold me tight and never let me go again. He doesn’t want to lose me and to be fair that’s reasonable, he loves me a lot and I love him back. Miles told us he had to go but he would be back tomorrow morning.

That just left the three of us to do whatever we wanted for the rest of the afternoon and evening since I doubted we would see much of Jordon or George today. I can understand that they feel rotten enough to just want to sleep the day away until they feel well enough to join us again. I sat on Dylan’s lap with my legs on Jorel’s while we wasted the afternoon watching Netflix, feeling good that for the most part we could go on with our lives as if some crazy motherfucker is out there somewhere trying to plan our demise which will fail horribly. We got this place locked down tighter than Fort Knox apparently. Not that I am a hundred percent sure where that is and what it is. All I know is they have very high security.

That night I fell asleep in Dylan’s arms like usual to the blissful dreams I keep having now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Next morning Dylan p.o.v ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was watching Danny sleep in my arms, just taking in the adorableness. I am so thankful the nightmares have stopped now, the last one he had was two days after the explosion and it was half about what happened that night, but somehow turned into a weird visual account of how his mother died. He has also had nightmares about being taken from his mother by slave masters to be given to a new master and I hated hearing him cry for his mother and begging her not to leave him again only to wake up to the sad truth that his mother isn’t around anymore. He has Jorel, Miles and the other Deckers now to look after him and show him that family love he needs. I get to show him the other kind of love which will last a lifetime, couple love.

Danny was sleeping in this morning. It’s already 11 am and I’ve not heard one peep from him. Usually he is up by now. I am a little worried, but I know the stomach flu has been going around so most likely he has that and he just doesn’t want to wake up. I carefully move him off me so that I could go to the bathroom as I have been desperate for a while now. Luckily for me Danny just snuggled into the sheets and stayed asleep, I noticed as I was about to leave the room for a moment that he does look pale today. This further confirms my theory that he isn’t feeling too good. I walked back into the room just as Danny was opening his eyes. “Morning buddy,” I tell him, I was getting back into bed to snuggle him, but he bolts up from the bed to the bathroom and I could hear him throwing up. I get back out of bed to go and take care of my boyfriend like he did with me a couple of days ago.

“It’s gonna be okay Danny, we can have a bed day today,” I tell him, and I rub his back while I wait for his body to finish what it is doing. “Morning Dylan,” Danny tells me, once he was done throwing up for now. I pulled him into a very gentle hug after wiping his mouth and kissing his forehead. He does have a fever, but there is not much I can do about it now other than run him a lukewarm bath and let him chill in it until it gets cold. We know he won’t be able to keep Tylenol or any other medication down at the moment. I tell him what I am going to do before I do it and he even tried helping me by taking his shirt and track pants off. George came wandering in when I was pouring the water down Danny’s back.

“I was wondering where you two were,” he tells us, and I smile at him. “Morning George, feeling better this morning?” I ask, and Danny just gives him a little wave. “Morning Dylan, I am feeling better thanks, I take it Danny now has what we had?” he asks and Danny nods at him. “Morning, I feel like death warmed up,” Danny admits, and I pause in trying to cool him down to rub his back. I was feeling the same way a couple of days ago, so I can completely sympathise with him. “Aw Danny, it’s going to get better I promise,” I tell him. Once we were sure he has cooled down a bit George lifted him out of the bath and into my arms while I was holding a towel.

I dried Danny off and helped him get changed before George carried him back into our room and onto the bed where the youngest is going to be spending the day resting while he tries to get over this sickness. “I’ll tell Jorel to make sure we still have Gatorade and chicken noodle soup stocked up so that when Danny feels a little better he can have some,” George tells me, Danny was already dozing off on the bed, so I join him for another cuddle. George brought us a bowl just in case Danny needed to be sick again and then left us so that Danny could rest. I play with Danny’s hair, hoping it would bring him some comfort and he just looked up at me with a sleepy smile. “I love you Dylan,” he tells me, and I kiss his cheek.

“I love you too Danny, just get some rest now baby. You’ll feel better in no time,” I tell him, and he snuggles up to me as much as the pain will let him. I thought he was going to go back to sleep, but he managed to stay awake for a little while, so I put the television on, so he can watch that until he falls asleep. He dozes off after a while and I take the time to help George plan some missions out for the rest of us to do when we are feeling a bit better and everyone has recovered from the sickness. “Jorel’s gone out to Walmart to get the stuff for Danny. For now, we’ll just let him rest while we plan the missions out that he asked me to do,” George tells me. We stayed in Danny and I’s bedroom so that if he needs us we would be right there.

We were working solidly for two hours before Danny started to have a nightmare. We both looked to the younger male who started tossing and turning under the covers. He was also whimpering a bit and George started to play with Danny’s hair to try and calm him down. “Mom, no don’t leave me,” Danny cries out and I felt so bad. “Mom please,” Danny cries and my heart broke. I don’t know if he is dreaming about being taken from his mom by the masters or when he found out his mom died. “Danny wake up baby,” I tell him, gently shaking Danny’s shoulder. He wakes up a couple of minutes later and looks around before bursting into tears. I pick him up and hold him close to me and rub his back to calm him down.

“It’s okay Danny, it’s gonna be okay,” I tell him. I was looking to George to see if he would be able to help me calm Danny down since he has become quite panicked. “It’s okay Danny, we know your mom is not around anymore but there are plenty of people who are going to look after you and she is looking down on you proud,” George tells Danny, and he rubs his back a little bit. We know he misses his mom a lot. Danny started calming down after a while and he held onto me tightly while he calmed down. His sobs have now reduced to sniffles and we rubbed his back until he finally calmed down. “What happened in your nightmare Danny?” George asks, talking about it will make him feel a little better. “It was the one I had before where I get taken away from my mom by the slave masters,” Danny tells me.

“Aw Danny, you are going to be okay. You don’t have to go back to them anymore. You are with us until you die buddy,” George tells Danny and I kiss my boyfriend’s cheek. He gives us a little smile and snuggles into me. I check Danny’s temperature and it’s a little on the warm side, but he can try taking Tylenol now and having a little drink of water. George gets up and gets the drink and Tylenol for Danny. Danny takes his pills with some of the water and snuggles into me. I hope he doesn’t throw up anymore and he can just rest easy now. I lie down on his bed and he snuggles up to my chest and I kiss the top of his head. “I love you Danny,” I tell him, and he gives me a little smile again. “I love you too Dylan,” he tells me and then drifts back off to sleep.

George left the room and Jorel, Danny’s brother walks in. Jorel comes and sits next to me and rubs Danny’s back. “George told me about the nightmare,” Jorel tells me, I think if he heard how scared and upset Danny was in his sleep then he would be upset for Danny. “Yeah, this is the second time I think he had that nightmare now and it doesn’t get any easier on him,” I tell Jorel. I knew Jorel was upset because of that. Danny should never have been a slave to be honest but there is nothing that we could do to prevent that. We can’t turn back the clock and stop Danny’s mom being taken by the slave masters while she was pregnant with Danny. “Poor Danny, I know there is nothing that we can do other than comfort him when he wakes up from them,” Jorel says.

I needed to go to the bathroom again, so I let Jorel cuddle up with his younger brother. I also wanted to go out and get something nice for Danny just as another way of showing him how much I truly love him. Then I heard it again, Danny crying out for his mother not to leave him and for her to come back and how much he hated being in that dark room alone. I’ll put all my plans for spoiling Danny on hold, it can definitely wait until he feels a lot better. He keeps having all these fevered nightmares and I need to comfort him during that. I walk over to the bed where Jorel was holding Danny who is crying in his sleep and Jorel tried to wake him up. He wakes up a few minutes later bawling his eyes out and Jorel and I worked together to calm him down.

“Was it that nightmare again Danny?” I ask him, he wasn’t crying as much as before but he was still quite upset. “Yeah, it was just my mom being taken away from me and being taken to a dark room and being kept there on my own and being hurt,” Danny says and he sniffles a little bit. Jorel rubs Danny’s back and Danny rests his head on his brothers’ shoulder and I just smiled at them. I love how close they are to each other and how much they help each other out. “Don’t worry Danny, we are going to make sure that no one takes you from us again,” Jorel says, and he kisses his brother on the forehead. After that Danny looked at me. “I’m sorry I am being such a baby aren’t I? Even you guys weren’t this bad,” Danny says, and he looks at his feet.

“You’re not a baby Danny. You have been through a rough life and all those memories aren’t going to disappear magically because you want them to. It’s going to take time and lots of love and care to make new memories to replace the bad ones. Don’t forget this is the first time you have been sick since your mom passed so it will be a bit more of an emotional time because you want her around to look after you and she isn’t here to do that,” I explain. I was telling Danny the truth because I wanted him to feel better. It is the first time that his mom isn’t around when he is sick and he wanted to have her hold him since he was free from Aron now. “I know, I just thought I wasn’t going to miss her as much today as I have been all the other days,” he tells me.

“Grief is a very tough thing to deal with. It takes just about over a year to get over the initial grief and even then it never truly goes away,” Jorel says and Danny gives him a little smile. Danny yawned and he snuggles up with me on the bed. Jorel snuggles up with us and we just watch the television until Danny fell asleep again in my arms. He had some Gatorade and more water before he fell asleep though, I was just praying that he could keep it down. “I can see what you mean now by Danny’s nightmares being heart breaking. I just want to take all of his pain away from him,” Jorel says and I nodded at him. “Yeah, I wish I could have the ability to take all of his pain away and that he could be his happy little self,” I tell him.

“I’m sure he can be his happy little self when he is feeling better. We can distract him when he is better and he won’t be thinking of the pain as much,” Jorel tells me, I know he is right. We just need to plan distract him with plenty of missions which are light. I don’t want him to do anything to heavy while he is getting over this sickness. We also want him to do the quick and light jobs so that we can keep an eye on him and we can minimize the risk of him being taken by Aron or Matt who still want to take him away from us. The missions like the gadget grab are perfect for him where as Jordon and George are more suited to the heavier missions like the drug runs and the missions where we have to hurt people.

Danny manages to sleep for an hour before he woke up to be sick for a second time that day. We calmed him down and cooled him down before he fell asleep again. I was happy that he was able to get some rest and he was able to sleep as easily. I struggled to sleep while I was sick and I thought he was going to be the same. Luckily for me, he was so tired that he just keeps dozing off. The nightmares he has being having haven’t been helpful with him resting and getting better from the sickness. He is hopefully just going to keep sleeping on and off for the rest of the day and he could start eating tomorrow.

If he keeps having issues keeping water down like he has been doing then I wasn’t going to make him eat anything unless he tells me that he is hungry. Then we could try some toast and see how he does with that. That’s only if he wakes up and tells me he is hungry, I am not expecting him to tell me he is hungry until tomorrow. I showed Jorel the plans that George and I had made when Danny first took a nap and he seems to approve of them. We gave everyone some light missions that we thought would suit the personality and skill level of each member the best. “These are good Dylan, maybe we can start working through these next week when Danny feels better. I checked on Jordon this morning and he still isn’t quite a hundred percent yet but he is getting there,” Jorel says.

“Yeah, don’t forget you’re also not a hundred percent well. George and I are just at the level now so it’s definitely going to be either next week or the week after before we start these,” I tell him. Then Miles knocks on the door. I was thankful he was here, maybe this can help Danny with his need to have a parental figure around. Don’t get me wrong he loves us looking after us, but maybe this time Miles can do better than us at comforting Danny. “I take it Danny got sick today?” Miles asks us and I nod. “He’s had a couple of nightmares as well but we are just trying to get him to rest today,” I tell him and Jorel gets up so that Miles could take his place on the bed. Jorel stood at the end of the bed and looked at me.

“Didn’t you say you bought Danny a promise ring?” Jorel asks me and I nod. “Yeah, I haven’t been able to pick it up yet. I thought I was going to do it today while Danny rests with you but after those nightmares I thought I should stay here instead,” I tell him. This was a surprise for Danny who is still sleeping in my arms. I was going to let Miles hold him soon, but right now I want to hold my baby bear while he sleeps. “I’ll go get it for you if you want Dylan. I don’t mind. I was going to get something from town anyway so I might as well help you out,” Jorel says and I smile at him. I was can’t wait for Danny to see his promise ring. One day I am going to turn the promise ring into an engagement ring and he is going to be mine forever.

“You don’t have to Jorel. I guess giving him it sooner might make him feel happier after all the horrible stuff that has happened in last month,” I tell him. Danny seems to be finally sleeping peacefully in my arms and I give him to Miles to let him have some one on one time with his son. “You could come with me I guess,” Jorel says when I get up. “I am just going to get myself some late lunch actually. I wasn’t thinking about coming with you,” I tell him. Jorel follows me down and I go to the kitchen just to make myself something quick to eat so I don’t ruin my appetite for later. I think Jorel was ordering takeaway just since everyone is not a hundred percent and not willing to stand there and cook for an hour or more.

I make myself a sandwich and grab a bag of chips and relax in the living room before Jorel goes out to get my little present for my special little bear. Miles was holding Danny protectively in his arms when I walked back to our room. “Jorel told me about the nightmares Danny has been having lately, they have been bad, haven’t they?” he asks me, and I sit down with him and play with the stray strands of his hair. “Yeah, I mean he has always had bad ones since he arrived, but the ones about his mom are the worst. He gets so upset over them because they are so bad,” I tell him, and he rubs Danny cheek to comfort his son. He gets worried about the mental state of his children ever since Evan took his life a few years back.

It’s understandable that he doesn’t want a repeat of that with his sons and his daughters. Danny’s current mental state is very fragile, and he probably has PTSD after everything he has been through. I think I am going to take Danny to a doctor when he is feeling better to see what happens. Maybe they would give him the PTSD diagnosis and some treatments that would benefit him the most. I want him to be better and his happy little self. I thought while we are talking that Danny had gone into another nightmare, but it was just him naturally waking up from his nap. He smiled when he saw his adopted dad. “Hey Danny, how are you feeling?” he asks him. Danny sighed, I knew he wasn’t feeling great. “I don’t feel good,” he tells his dad.

“I know buddy, Dylan and Jorel told me you have the sicky bug that they had,” Miles tells Danny and he rubs his son’s cheek. I love how close they are already, Danny needs a father figure to help him through all his worries. “Don’t worry though Danny, I’ll be here with Dylan and the others to help make sure you get better,” Miles adds and then Danny smiles. He looks at me and he gets a bigger smile. I sit with him and he hugs me tightly. “Miles is right Danny. We will always be here to look after you when you need us to,” I tell him, he seems to be feeling a little brighter now. I know he is feeling sick still but not as bad as earlier on this morning. “I know, and I appreciate it a lot,” Danny tells me.

“We know you do Danny. We are finally the people in your live to treat you like you deserve to be treated. This should have been done twenty-four years ago but we can only do what we are doing now,” Miles tells him. That was very true, if we knew that Danny was in Aron’s clutches we probably would have taken him sooner and started helping him out sooner but even with any hindsight we probably wouldn’t have been able to do this. Aron is very secretive about the whole thing and we didn’t know that he was keeping and adult hostage until Jorel and George went in there to get the stolen objects back. Jorel came back with my present and I put it with on the bedside table. I could give him it now, but I want to wait a little bit.

He is trying to drink a little bit of water now and see if he can keep it down. He smiled at me and he snuggled up to his adopted dad for a bit longer which was okay with me. I went into the bathroom and looked at the promise ring I am about to give Danny. I had “To you my heart I surrender” inscribed on the outside and our names and the date we got together on the inside. It was perfect and exactly how I wanted it to be. I show Jorel the ring and he is just as impressed with it as I am. I paid a lot of money for this ring, so I was happy that it was what I paid for. “Can’t wait to see Danny’s reaction when he sees this,” Jorel tells me and I smile. “Yeah, I can’t wait to promise him that my heart is always going to be his,” I tell him.

It was getting late in the afternoon and I know the evening is approaching now. We will have dinner soon and then I can spend the night with my baby. “Hey Danny, I have a little present for you,” I tell Danny when I walk back into the room with the ring box behind my back. He looked so curious and he shuffled to the edge of the bed and I dropped down on one knee in front on of him. “Danny, I promise to you that my heart and my love is going to be eternally yours from now until the day that we die,” I tell him, and he covers his mouth in shock. I showed him the ring and I see tears in his eyes. Miles was still on the bed smiling at the two of us. We are going to have his blessing for when we get married eventually.

“I love you Dylan,” he tells me, and he smiles at me. I put the ring on his finger and it was a perfect match. “I love you too Danny,” I tell him, and I stand up then carefully pull him up to his feet, so I could give him the sweetest kiss. He kissed me back and Miles clapped for us both which made Danny blush and hide his face in my shirt. “You’re such an adorable boy Danny,” Miles says, and he hugs us both. Danny smiled at us both and he had the biggest blush on his face. “You are Danny,” I tell him. Then we decide while he is feeling a bit better that we should spend our evening in the lounge with everyone else. George was happy to see us and to see Danny happy. We all knew the explosion has affected Danny more than we ever expected.

Danny fell asleep in my arms and I carried him to bed before falling asleep next to him. My perfect little warrior.

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That is the end of chapter 7. I hope you enjoyed. I’ve got 4 more chapters left until this story is done which includes the epilogue. Let me know what you think of how this story is going and if you like it or not.


	9. Chapter 8

Hello guys, the end is near only 2 more chapters and an Epilogue to go after this. After the sort of semi relaxed last chapter the drama will start kicking up a bit. I hope people are still enjoying this story!

Danny will now be 25 from this chapter onwards as I move past November and now skip forward into January.

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Danny p.o.v

We are in Mile’s car on the way back to the old base. Miles wanted Jorel to come as the leader of the Undead gang to oversee the demolition of the old base before the tunnels that were used to cause the destruction of the base were filled in. Since I was still learning the ropes of being a fully-fledged gang member, Jorel wanted me to come a long to see what happens. Also, because I am his brother now if anything should happen to him then I was going to become the leader by default. The gangs especially Italian mafia ones, run in the family. Mile’s mafia will pass down to the eldest child since Jorel has the Undead gang. “Are you feeling all better now Danny?” Miles asks me, after my 25th birthday I got appendicitis and spent a week in the hospital with it and only just managed to get out of hospital in time for new year’s.

“Yeah, I think I am fully recovered now thanks Dad,” I tell him, in a way it still felt alien for me to call him my father, but I was quickly becoming adjusted to it. He has only been my father since October legally. He smiled at me, he was happy that I was recovered because I think everyone thought I was going to die when they discovered the infection left behind by my appendix rupturing and how sick I was when I was admitted to the intensive care unit. “That’s good Danny, this mission is very light so that means to can take it easy if you want to. I can find you somewhere to sit if you need it,” he tells me, and I smile. I might end up sitting down at some point. They said they might do a controlled detonation, but that stuff gives me the creeps.

When we got there, we discovered that there was not a lot of building left which made me think that we probably won’t do the controlled detonation after all. I’ll let my brother know if I need to rest at any time. I had the feeling that someone else besides us and the team who were here to destroy what remains of the old base. Jorel sensed my unease and stayed close to me. “Are you okay Danny?” Jorel asks me and I reluctantly nod my head and he could tell. “I just have this feeling that we are not alone,” I tell him, and he looks around, we don’t see anyone else at the moment though. “Alright Danny, I don’t doubt you on that. If you spot anything else let me know,” he tells me and then hugs me as we watch the demolition get started.

Miles was watching the two of us and was on the phone. He might be trying to arrange protection for us even though he doesn’t know about the feeling I have since we arrived here. I have only told Jorel about it. We watched as the workman took a good old sledge hammer and passed it to Jorel. He told Jorel that he could have the first hit of the demolition and Jorel happily took that opportunity. I think it was a good opportunity for him to take out the anger he has built up over the whole Aron and Matt fiasco. Since my surgery was only a couple of weeks ago I decided not to take part. I just watched with Miles as Jorel went to town with the hammer and one of the half-destroyed walls of our old base. I think Miles sensed I was a little on edge, so he personally stayed close to me while the workmen and Jorel worked together on destroying the old base.

I wish I could have joined in on the fun. I knew deep down that there was no way that I could have prevented my appendix incident, or the long hospital stay I would have had afterwards. Dylan was even more protective of me then he usually was after that and he would hold me tightly every night when we would both fall asleep. He spent every moment he could by my bedside from the moment he could see me after the surgery happened and even today he was reluctant to let me leave his sight, but he trusts both Jorel and Miles to keep an eye on me and to look after me. I texted him to make sure he knew that we arrived safely, and that the demolition was going okay. I even sent him a picture of Jorel going at it.

I had my blue contact lenses in and I had my sleeves down as far as they could go over my hands. When Jorel used my name outside of the car he said it very quietly, so no one would know it is actually me. If they needed to shout for me then they would use Nathaniel or Nath for my name. It was just another method of protecting me when Aron or Matt might be around and try and take me back to them. The last thing anyone wants is for me to be kidnapped to the enemies’ hands. I wanted to make sure that I kept myself safe and keep the others safe as well. I don’t want to be the reason why the others have been attacked. I start thinking back to when I was in hospital and what it was like for everyone because I felt incredibly guilty about it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the hospital~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dylan’s point of view

Danny has only just come out of surgery after collapsing at home. They said it was something to do with his appendix and he was quite sick. He was in so much pain when he collapsed, and I couldn’t do anything to help him but hold him and wait for the ambulance which Jorel had called. The surgeon came out and walked straight over to Jorel and I who were waiting for news. The others are coming over later once Danny is in recovery. “The surgery went well, however we discovered that his appendix has ruptured about two or three days before today so there is some infection there. We have cleaned it and put him on antibiotics for it. However, Daniel is very sick, so we are keeping him sedated for at least the next couple of days and see how he goes,” the surgeon says and my heart sinks to my stomach.

My baby, my little bear is sick and won’t be able to come round from the anaesthetic today. I promise him unspoken that I was going to stay by his side every day and every night until he comes home and then it will be back to us spending every night in bed together when he comes home. I know that he is going to recover fine from this and I wasn’t going to worry too much about him being in the coma. Jorel looked as worried as I felt inside, a feeling I was foolishly bottling up until I get to see Danny in a few minutes time. Jorel goes off to call the rest of the guys and his and Danny’s father to give them the update they have desperately been waiting for. He knows what room Danny is in, so he can go there afterwards.

I get to walk into the room first and I was so apprehensive even though I had a rough idea on what to expect. Danny is going to be in there with an IV line in his hand and monitors on his chest and a ventilator tube going down his throat. I hold back the tears as I sit next to him and take the hand without the IV catheter in and hold it tightly, so he knows I am here. “Don’t worry Danny, you will be just fine I promise,” I tell him, knowing full well that it was his first ever time in a hospital. He wasn’t even born in a hospital as far as he knows. The slave masters made his mom have a home birth to avoid suspicion. The slave master’s house has always been on the police suspect list so if they know someone else was there then a raid would be called.

Jorel came in a few minutes later with Miles quite close behind him. Miles was understandably worried about his adopted son and started playing with his son’s hair as soon as he got the chance to and Jorel stood next to me. “Danny has an infection?” Miles asks, and all we can do is nod. We didn’t realise that Danny has been showing some symptoms of his appendix being a problem before today and I felt like a horrible boyfriend for not noticing sooner. “He will be fine though, the doctor told me that we have noticed it in time and he is on the right medication for it and he only needs to stay sedated for at least today and tomorrow,” Jorel says, reassuring his dad. Danny couldn’t reassure his dad that he is going to be okay, but I think Miles believes Jorel.

~two days later~

Danny is going to wake up in a little while and I couldn’t be happier. I have spent the last two days here by his bedside not moving much. I went for a shower and I have taken care of myself, but I want to be there for my boyfriend when he wakes up. They are weaning him off the sedation at the moment, so I was sitting with him and holding his hand and letting him know that I am there for him. Jorel, Miles and the rest of the guys have been taking it in turns to stay with me and Danny and to make sure that I look after myself while a dedicated team of doctors and nurses take care of my bear around the clock. The nurse told me it is now only a matter of time before Danny wakes up and she leaves for a moment.

Danny woke up for the first time about ten minutes after she left. He struggled to focus on his surroundings at first but after a few minutes he manages to focus, and he sees me for the first time since he woke up. His eyes lit up like Christmas trees. “Hello bear,” I tell him. Then I kiss his cheek and run my hand through his blonde hair. I was trying to keep him calm since this was the first time that he has been in a hospital and he can’t even tell me Hello because of the tubing currently going down his throat. “Don’t worry Danny, everything is going to be fine and you are going to be fine,” I tell him, and I smiled at him. He was a little nervous, but he held my hand back which was good. He looked a lot better too.

He wasn’t as pale as he has been, and the doctor told me most of the infection has gone. There is just a smidge infection remaining. He was going to be well on his way to being back to full health. It will be a couple of weeks of just resting right now. The nurse came back and took down Danny’s vitals before letting him know that they were starting to wean him off the ventilator in a short while. I keep hold of his hand when his dad walks in, I saw his eyes light up again and he so desperately wants to smile at his dad. “This is a nice surprise. Hello Danny,” he says, and he walks up to his son. He plays with his son’s hair after kissing his son’s forehead. He was helping us keep Danny relaxed while we wait for the ventilator to come out.

It took another couple of hours before the tube came out and I finally got to kiss my boyfriend on the lips. I knew his lips were dry and a little cracked, but it didn’t seem to bother him since he eagerly kissed me back. “You’ll be just fine son,” Miles says, and then helps Danny to drink some water to help the soreness in his throat. “I know dad, I just was a bit worried when I woke up,” Danny manages to say, it did take him a little while though. “That’s to be expected bear. You have never been in a hospital before, George has always taken care of you,” I tell him, I think he knows the open surgery he has had means George could not have done it despite his medical expertise. We just don’t have the things needed for a surgery as big as the one Danny needed.

We talked for a while and Danny invited me to join him on the bed which I gladly accepted, and we spent the rest of the day snuggling before Danny decided that he was very tired, and he needed to go to sleep. I was expecting him to have napped at least one since he first woke up from the coma, but he didn’t. I guess he wasn’t that tired then. I love my little bear and he loves me back and that was enough to get the both of us through the tough times this gang life has brought us over the months.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ back at the demolition~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Danny p.o.v

That uneasy feeling, I had before was back. It was weird because I thought I was going to be more nervous when I was at the hospital waking up from the coma. I wasn’t, but then again, I knew back at the hospital that I was in safe hands and there was no risk of Aron or Matt trying to take me from the rest of them. Miles decided I was safe enough for now, so he could join Jorel in the smashing of the destroyed base. I was on very high alert, I was twitchy at every little sound that I heard that was not the guys smashing up the old base. I was right when I felt someone grab me from behind and I held back the scream. “Keep quiet pipsqueak,” Matt says, and I freeze in fear. Deep down I knew this was going to happen.

I didn’t want this to happen, but it was very apparent that Matthew wanted this. I don’t think he quite knows who I am though. Jorel saw what happened and ran over but Matthew kept a tight grip on my arm and it hurt. “Let Nath go Matthew,” Jorel says, his voice dangerously low and using my fake nickname where he used Matt’s full first name. Miles was alerted to what was going on and ran over to help Jorel out and save me. “No, Aron says he wants all of you,” Matthew says to me. I don’t think he knows were Danny has gone then. Maybe he thinks I have died since he hasn’t seen me since that day when he chased me. “Well, he is going to have to be very disappointed,” Miles says and punches Matthew hard.

That was enough to knock Matthew clean out and I stumbled forwards into Jorel’s arms. He checked me over and then hugged me tightly as I held back the tears. “It’s okay now, you are safe now,” Jorel tells me as one of the bodyguards comes to take Matthew away. I presume he might end up dead by the end of today. Miles hugged us both tightly and kissed the top of my head. “Jorel is right, Matthew has been dealt with now and that just leaves Aron, but I know he will be dealt with soon enough,” Miles says, and I feel a little calmer now knowing that information. I was very reluctant to stay there too much longer in case Aron shows up, but I saw that there were more bodyguards around now which made me feel a little safer.

I want to go home, but at the same time I want to make sure that I stay strong and stay brave. I need to stick through and watch the procedure of this in case I have to oversee a demolition myself when I gain a bit more experience. They won’t let a newbie like me oversee a big demolition on my own so if they make me do another one then Jorel, George or Dylan and maybe even Jordon will help me. Miles held onto me as Jorel decided to take his newly built anger out on one of the walls that haven’t quite been knocked down yet. “He feels bad about that incident that just happened, doesn’t he?” I ask my father as we stand together and watch my brother from a distance. My father nods and rubs my shoulder.

“He does, you were literally back in the enemies’ hands for a moment. Of course, he is going to be mad and angry, but even he couldn’t prevent what happened,” Miles tells me, and I hug him back. I felt really safe in his arms. Jorel completely demolished a wall on his own with the anger that he is in at the moment. The workman looked really impressed and then walked up to us and said there was a little bit that I could do that was light, but at least I was helping. He even mentioned it would be harder to get to me that way. I am allowed to throw some of the bricks into the dumpster. I could even take a hammer to a small part of the wall if I wanted to. Miles was filming Jorel and I having a blast, so he could send it to a very worried Dylan.

He will find out about what happened with Matt which would make him even more worried than he was before, but by the time he finds out we will be at home. I wasn’t in any pain with it either which was good. I was happy that I was now allowed to participate, and I was taking it very easy. Miles joined me in throwing the bricks and bits of building into the dumpster and skips that were here to dispose of the rubble. I felt after a while like it was a good chance to have some bonding time with my father since we haven’t had a chance like this since he adopted me a few months ago. I was having fun and so was he which made it all the more better. Miles did some more videos as family memories which was good.

We were all finished by about 5 pm which was better than the workman expected, but once we got into a rhythm it was all smooth sailing from there. Jorel and the workman would smash the wall up and I would throw the rubble into the dumpster and skips with my dad. It was like we had little system and it went like clockwork. I had fun and enjoyed myself. I wasn’t in any pain which was good. I sat in between my father and my brother on the ride home. There were security escorts all around us on the drive home which was not unusual. My father is the leader of a mafia, so he is expected to have high security around them at all times in case of people who might try and assassinate them. It goes the same for Jorel and I as well.

Since we are the children of the godfather or mafioso as we are known in the mafia, we are also targets. We are at a slightly lower risk of being assassinated than Miles is, but the risk is there none the less. Dylan was waiting at the front door when he heard the car pull up, so I ran into his arms. I was happy to see him and be back with him after that nightmare that was the almost second kidnapping. “Hello Danny, you’re unusually cuddly today,” Dylan says, and he wraps his arms around me tightly. “We should go inside Dylan, there is something we need to discuss with everyone,” Miles says, and he sounds very serious. Dylan’s cheery attitude dropped, and he held me tighter as we walked inside.

Jorel shouted for everyone to come into the meeting room and Dylan followed Miles into the room first. Jorel wanted to make sure that the other three arrive before we tell them what happened today between Matthew and I. Everyone walked in and when they saw the way that Dylan was holding onto me they immediately became concerned. “What’s going on?” George asks, and he sits next to Dylan. Jorel sat on the other side of me and Jordon sat next to Miles on the other side of the table. “I will explain in a moment,” Miles says, and Dylan hugs me just a little tighter. “There was a slight incident at the old base, but everything has been dealt with,” Miles says, and there were gasps of shock across the room.

“Matthew tried to grab Danny, he managed to get away with it for five minutes. We knocked him out and he is now at our base pending my arrival to oversee his death. Danny is fine, there are no injuries apart from a possible bruise mark on his arm and he is a little shocked, but I kept him busy and we helped out with the complete demolition of the old base,” Miles, explains and Dylan kisses me on the cheek. George and Jordon were both shocked and terrified, but they were both happy that the matter has been dealt with and that we have finally caught one of the people who are a real risk to our lives and our security. “That’s good that Danny doesn’t have any more injuries. He is still recovering from the operation a few weeks ago,” George says.

I watched as Dylan cooked the dinner a little later on. We are now waiting for a text from Miles to say that Matthew has now been dealt with and he will no longer be a threat to us. Jordon and George were watching as well. They told me it has been a while since Dylan last cooked. They said that it was because of me that Dylan has found his passion for cooking again. I was excited to try his cooking since I have never had his cooking before, so it will be new to me. I hugged the two older men who were still a little worried about me since they heard about the incident with Matthew. Jorel was punching some of the anger that he still had left on the punching bag in the gym. He still feels like he could have done more.

I have tried my best to reassure Jorel that he has not done anything wrong and there was nothing he could do to prevent that minor slip up that happened. We know how sneaky and crafty Matthew can become and we dealt with it in time and I came out of the ordeal completely unscathed and if I was affected than those affects will only be temporary since I had the best people in the world to look after me. I was a little worried about Jorel, but I knew I just had to leave him alone to work out his anger and he would be perfectly fine afterwards. I look at Dylan while he was cooking, I was in awe. I have the same life skills that they have, but unlike them I was forced to learn them at a young age where I should have been playing with toys or using a colouring book.

Jorel joined us just after the dinner was put out and he seemed to be a lot calmer as he sat next to me, but I gave him an extra hug as good measure. He smiled at me and we ate our dinner in a comfortable silence. Then we went to the living room and I did the dishes. “Why are you doing the dishes Danny?” Dylan asks me when he walks into the kitchen to see me handwashing the dishes. “You cooked the meal, so you shouldn’t have to do the dishes and I felt like doing them tonight. I have spent too long not doing anything,” I tell him, and Dylan didn’t seem happy with that. I don’t like having to spend the day doing nothing. I always want to be doing something. I don’t like being on the sofa when I have to be whether that be because I have been sick or injured in some way.

“Aw Danny, you don’t have to do anything extra. We all share the chores here and all work as a team. You have been through a lot today and over the last month, so our natural instinct is to protect you and let you have as much rest as possible,” Dylan explains. I appreciate their efforts to protect me and look after me, but I knew even know a few months down the line from when I was rescued by them that I was going to struggle adjusting to being helped and having to rely on myself less than I have been in the past. I am so used to being independent and the only one who cares for me. “I know, I think I am still getting used to being a free man you know,” I tell him, we start working together on the dishes.

Once the dishes were done he spun me around and gave me a dip kiss. I was a bit surprised, but I held onto him and kissed him back. I saw Jorel out of the corner of my eye and I smiled into the kiss. He was happy to see me happy with someone that I love. “Come on love birds, we have a movie night tonight,” Jorel tells us which separates us for a moment. “Okay bro, we will be there in a minute don’t worry,” I tell him, and he chuckles at me. I like those moments when I get to be a little cheeky with him and I think it helped with the mood that was still around after what happened with Matt. We did get a text ten minutes ago to say that he has been professionally dealt with and his threat was neutralised.

We spent hours watching movies together all close to one another just in case something else happened during the night. Everyone was a little more at ease when it came to bedtime and Jorel had gone through and made sure that all the security measure was up and in perfect working order. The last thing that he wanted tonight was for Aron to find out that Matthew has been murdered and that he was going to come after us in revenge despite him not knowing where the new base is. Jordon was a little more upset than usual, so I decided to go and talk to him and Dylan was okay with that. He knows how helpful I am towards others and Jordon was not about to be ignored by me.

As I walk the short distance to his room, a few different thoughts cross my mind as to what it is that might be upsetting him. It could be because I was nearly taken away from them or it could be something else. I knew that Matthew was Jordon’s love interest and they did date for a time. No matter what happens in those kinds of relationships it is hard to stop loving someone. I don’t think you can ever stop loving someone. I knocked on the door first in case Jordon didn’t want me in there. “Who is it?” Jordan calls out and it gave me a little bit of hope that I could help him out. “It’s me Danny,” I call back and then he opens the door for me to come in. He had tears in his eyes and I just want to make him all better.

“What’s wrong Jordon?” I ask him, I sit next to him on the bed and I am prepared to hug him at any moment should I need to. It felt weird considered how much younger I am to him that I am trying to be the big brother figure or really caring little brother. “I don’t know Danny, my heart’s all confused,” Jordon admits, and I think I might know what is going on in his mind. I got up for a brief moment to grab some tissue and I sit back down next to him and take one of his hands in mine. “It is over Matt?” I ask him, and he nods, almost breaking down right then and there into tears. “Your heart will be confused but it is going to be okay,” I tell him, and he looks at me like he is even more confused, but I was trying to word the next sentence right.

“You can never fall out of love with someone if you were in a relationship with them like you and Matt were. You were devastated when you thought he died and then felt joy when he came back thinking you could start your relationship back to where it left off for it to be cruelly ripped away from you by Aron who turned your former flame against you. Then you had to deal with more betrayal as he started hurting those you care about and finally you only just dealt with the final blow which is that he had to die. All of these things are going to lead to how you feel right now,” I tell him, and I prayed that I had made sense to him. The last thing I needed was to make the whole situation worse unnecessarily. I think I managed to explain it well enough.

“Wow Danny, you’re right. That just cleared up everything,” Jordon says and for a moment I thought he was being extremely sarcastic with me, but the tears proved otherwise. “I know it is going to hurt losing someone you loved, but it will get better in the end and you can talk to anyone of us at any time if you feel like it is going to help you,” I tell him and pull him into a hug while he sobs his heart out to me. I rubbed his back and comforted him in all the ways he comforted me when I was told that my mom had passed away. I found the comfort extremely helpful and I hope Jordon will feel the same in time. I am not expecting him to bounce back overnight. “The little brother becomes the big brother for a moment,” Jordon says, with a weak chuckle when he calms down.

“You know I am always happy to help and pay back for what you have done to support me since I arrived Jordon. I am always here to help you and I want to support you,” I tell him, and I smile at him. He was acting a little like me in the way. I was a little stubborn when it comes to accepting help from people and he looked at the clock while he wipes the tears away from his eyes. “Danny you should be going to bed dude, you should be resting right now,” Jordon tells me, and I chuckle at him. “Yeah I will once I know you are going to be okay and you can come to us at any time during the night if you need to,” I tell him and we have another hug before I decide to go back to my room to snuggle up to Dylan and fall asleep in his arms.

“Where did you go Danny bear,” Dylan asked me, I walked back in trying to be happy even though I was worried for Jordon. “I went to talk to Jordon, because I just had the feeling that he needed someone to talk to,” I tell him, and he smiles at me. He hugs me tightly and I hugged him back. “That’s good Danny. Is he okay?” Dylan asks me, and I shake my head. “He’s upset about losing Matt. It’s sometimes easy to forget that he was in love with Matt and it is just like losing a loved one,” I tell him, and he understands every word that I said. “Yeah, I think you and I need to help Jordon out in the next few days,” Dylan tells me, and I nod. We will help Jordon through his grief just like he helped me out with mine.

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And that is the end of another chapter. I hope you enjoyed and see you for the next one!


	10. Chapter 9

~ one month later~ Jorel’s point of view

I think I have said the word fuck a little too much in the last few hours. Now that Matt has been dealt with we all knew Aron would step up and turn up the heat. I didn’t expect him to take Danny while he was in Walmart though. Luckily my dad was on the case as soon as he found out and he swore to me that he would get my little brother back in one piece and Aron was going to pay. If my dad can end Aron’s life, then he would want to do it personally I know that much. He would want to go to where Aron is keeping Danny with his personal bodyguards and murder Aron on sight for hurting Danny. I am still angry at the whole situation, but I was calming down because I trust my dad that he will bring Danny back.

Dylan was distraught, and George was trying to calm him down like Danny did with Jordon just a month ago when Matt died. “Don’t worry Dylan, Danny is going to come back. Miles is going to get him back,” George says, holding Dylan tightly as he sobbed in George’s arms. Danny and Dylan have become really close and I loved seeing them get along and how much of a sweet couple they are. “George is right Dylan, Danny is going to come back in one piece and everything will be fine,” I tell him. I am feeling more optimistic than I was earlier, but until my baby brother was back in my house and my arms. Only then I can calm down completely and it will all be okay, and we can deal with whatever happens after that.

Suddenly I get a text, it was from my dad. I told George and Dylan that I had a text and Jordon came into the room just before I started talking. I was going to read the text out loud to them if it contained news about Danny and Aron and if he found them. I was hoping that it was going to have the news that I was hoping for. I nervously unlocked my phone and went straight to the text messages and opened the one from my dad. I sighed in relief as I quickly skimmed over the text with the keywords that I was hoping to see. “Right guys, I have a text from my dad and it has news about Danny,” I let them know. They were excited, and I was going to read the information out to them in a moment. They way that I spoke about it shows them that it wasn’t bad news as of yet.

Miles: Hey Jay, I have found Danny’s location and I am assembling my trusted men to come with me on the recovery mission. I can’t tell you now, what state Danny will be in as of yet. As my son you are more than welcome to join with me if you want, but I am not making it a demand.

I didn’t read the last statement out, but I might let them know a little bit about it because I was so tempted to go with my dad to see for myself. I was more than likely going to meet dad halfway back to the house to keep Danny calm and look after him. He is going to be very panicked and he might want either me or dad to calm him down he might even want Dylan to cuddle him. I was worried about him, but I knew that Danny was going to be safe as soon as Miles arrives there. “Are you going to be going with him Jorel?” George asks, I had let him see the message since I trusted him. I also wanted his opinion. I texted my dad saying I wasn’t going to be join him until he was bringing Danny back. I also let him know that we wanted to deal with Aron as a gang with him there and we might let Danny in if he wanted to.

“No, I just get this feeling that Aron might not be there, and it will be more of nine lives that we will deal with which is less fun then dealing with Aron,” I tell him. Aron wouldn’t be that stupid he knows by taking Danny it will anger me and I will be going after him and he would not be there when I get there. “Yeah Miles will know that too and he will deal with it accordingly and let you deal with it how you wish,” George tells me. I love how he thinks on a similar level to the rest of us and how that we can deal with this once and for all eventually. Miles texted me after he got mine and said he understood and knew that Aron wasn’t going to be there upon his arrival and we will deal with that when it happens.

Now its just a waiting game, we have to wait for my dad to text me to say that he has Danny and they are on their way back. I don’t think many of Nine Lives if any are going to be alive after this rescue mission. Dad may want to keep them as his victims to get information out of them about Aron. It might be the best lead he will have if he gets someone like Truth or Yumma. They are his right-hand men as far as I am aware based on my research. He has Gadjet and B.Lay too but he doesn’t trust them as much as he trusts the other two. George comes up behind me and rubs my shoulder. I lean back to look up at the older man.

“Don’t worry like I told Dylan it’s going to be worked out in the end. Danny will be coming home,” he tells me. Dylan was on a sofa and he had cried himself to sleep. I felt sorry for him, his little love was gone, and I should have protected him against it. “I know, but I should have done something. Should have gone with him and protected him,” I admit to George. I know it isn’t good to be feeling guilty and blaming myself and everything, but I can’t help it. “True, but at the same time Danny can’t be escorted everywhere. Like you said when Matthew was there a month ago he wants all of us and it would have been too easy if you went to grab both of you. It’s easier to deal with it when there is only one missing person,” George tells me.

George is always the one who speaks sense and helps me calm down when I am stressed out like this. George took me over to the sofa and sat me down with him. I just accepted the comfort he was offering because I was going to be panicking until I get notified that Danny was safe and on his way home. I am not going to sleep until Danny is back home with us and he is safe. I hugged George and he hugged me back. This is going to be an anxious wait for all of us. “I’ll make you guys coffee?” Jordon asks me, and George and we nod. I know I am going to need the coffee and I am going to be surviving off it for however long it takes for news to arrive. I get up and cover Dylan with a blanket and rub his shoulder before going back to George.

“Bless him he is out for the count,” I tell George, he wraps his arms around me when I sit back down on the couch. I’m glad that Dylan has been able to find some peace. “Yeah, I thought I couldn’t calm him down at first, he was so hysterical over it. Hopefully Danny will be found soon,” George says, a few moments later Jordon walks back in with the coffees. “I put a bit of brandy in each, I thought you might need it,” Jordon tells us, and I smile at him as he passes me my cup. “Thank you, Jordon, I think we need it,” I tell him. He smiles back at me and sat down on the floor next to where Dylan is sleeping. Jordon was going to be keeping an eye on Dylan should he need cuddles since George decided I needed cuddles too.

“It’s weird not having Danny around, we have gotten so used to him being here,” Jordon says, and I agree with him. Danny definitely brightened this place up in his time and I feel weird now that he is gone. I just want my brother back already. I answered a panicked call from my mom who thought both Danny and I have been kidnapped. I reassured her that I was fine, but it was true that Danny had been taken and dad was on the recovery mission. My other siblings couldn’t care less for Danny, but mom took him on like a son and they have slowly grown closer. We all accept that Danny doesn’t want to replace his memories of the woman who was his mom, but our mom was still there to love him regardless.

George manages to convince me to relax and I relaxed enough that I was dozing off in his arms. “You can sleep too Jorel, I will wake you when Miles calls,” George says. There wasn’t going to be much else to do other than sit and wait for news so whatever fills the time I will do. I know I said I wasn’t going to sleep until I heard something from my dad, but I was so tired already that a little nap won’t hurt. I know George is going to wake me up on time and my phone was on loud, so it would wake me up anyways. “Okay, I suppose a little rest won’t hurt. When Danny gets back I am probably going to be watching over him like a hawk,” I tell them.

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Danny p.o.v

“Hello is anyone home?” I hear someone shout. I have no idea where I am and what Aron wants with me. He scarpered pretty soon after he found out that Jorel knew I had been taken. I was just left with the Nine Lives crew and they had roughed me up pretty good. I was keeping silent and not giving any of the HU gang or Mafia secrets that I knew. I have screamed a lot in pain but once the knocks happened they stopped torturing me. “Shit, it’s the bailiffs what the fuck do we do?” Truth asks Yumma. They are screwed if they find me in here, I am not supposed to be here and there are a LOT of weapons out on the tables. “Hide everything or keep them to one room. I know the Mafia will kill us anyway but best not get the pigs on us,” Yumma says, he was stressed, and I kept my mouth shut.

I was going to be a good boy right now. Aron must not be making the same amount of funds he used to when he worked as a member of HU. They hid everything but me for some reason. I was given one of their hoodies to hide their injuries that they inflicted on me as a bailiff walked in. “Are any of you Aron Erlichman?” One of the bailiff asks us. I do my best to suck up and hide all the pain I am in and shake my head. “He left about two hours ago, he told us not to call him,” Gadjet says and I just saw the glares he received from the other three men in the room that were part of Nine Lives. “Can any of you pay the debt for him?” the main bailiff asks. I shake my head, I wasn’t part of this. I have the money to pay, but no way in hell am I going to pay.

My former master can go fuck himself if he expects me to pay this $4,000 debt for him. He is lucky it isn’t higher, but I have a feeling the bailiffs are going to hate seeing his name after a little while. “I think we can pay it off together if that’s okay, apart from blonde down there. He isn’t part of the company,” Yumma says, flawlessly covering me being here and not paying the debt. They sorted it out and they left. “Well, I gotta say kid you did better than one of our own during that,” Yumma says when the bailiffs left. I gave him a little smile, knowing that will be all the praise I get while I am here, and my dad will come soon enough. “God damn it Gadjet, you couldn’t keep your mouth shut for one moment, can you?” Truth says.

Yumma was keen to find a reason to praise me where as Truth wanted to take his frustrations out. “We are gonna get killed when the mafia shows up anyway so it’s best to take it out on Gadjet for once,” Yumma says, he is a weird man I have to say. One minute he wants to murder me, but Aron told him not to and then he doesn’t want to hurt me anymore which is even weirder for me since I was expecting him to keep hurting me. Then again, all his torture toys have been put away and he wouldn’t want to waste time bringing them back out only for them to be put away again when my father eventually turns up. “Why are you so sure we are going to be killed?” the other guy asks, I can’t remember what his name is though.

“I am pretty sure based on what I know that if we hurt any members of the HU gang and any of the Mafia’s family then we will be killed for it,” Yumma says, I am not sure if he knows I am the Godfather’s son now, but it doesn’t really matter they know they are going to die anyway. “Are you sure this is the kid that was the slave? He looks different,” Truth says, I have the blonde hair and the contact lenses in as well as a few new tattoos. “Well, I don’t think he is the slave. Matt said he name was Nath when he confronted him before,” Yumma says after a minute or two. It also felt weird for me to hear Matt’s name spoken so freely after his death and treason. Aron obviously looked at me and recognised me straight away, but the others would not have known.

I haven’t kept track of how long it has been since I was taken, and I know I am not in Los Angeles anymore. I heard one of them complain about how long the journey had taken them. I heard doors slam and I knew the Calvary had finally arrived to rescue me. I kept a good poker face up and didn’t let them know that I knew they were fucked. A few minutes later Miles storms in with his closest bodyguards with guns pointed at everyone but me. “Hand him over and no one gets hurt,” my dad says, and he was showing that he was threatening. Truth got up and threw me towards my dad who held onto my arm to stop me from falling. The bodyguards took hold of the others arms to stop them from running.

Then a few minutes later I was in the back of my dad’s luxury van and someone was only doing a quick patch up of the bleeding on the various cuts on my body. “Right, send those idiots off back to the base. Once I have my son safely returned back home I will come and deal with them. A couple of you should go in that van just in case Aron tries to sabotage it,” Miles orders which leaves him with me and two of the other bodyguards. Now that the rush had calmed down he switched to dad mode and cradled me to keep me calm. He rubbed my cheek and I smiled at him. I was so happy to be back with people I trust. “I’ll call Jorel to let him know we have you safe and sound,” dad tells me, and I smiled. I know everyone else back home will be so worried about me right now.

“Hello Jorel,” Miles says when my older brother picks up the phone. “Hey dad, I take it you have news on Danny?” Jorel asks hopefully. My dad has put the phone on speaker so that I could hear my brother and speak to him if I needed to. “Yeah, we have our little bear in my arms right now. We are about to leave in a minute,” Miles says, and I smiled. I was starting to get tired, but I wasn’t a hundred percent sure why. “Do you want me to come and meet you halfway dad?” Jorel offers and I kinda wanted that. Then again, I don’t know how far away from Los Angeles I currently am right now. “Might not be the best idea right now son. We are in San Francisco at the moment and we are going to try and make the six-hour journey as quickly as we can if you know what I mean,” our father says.

“Oh, jeez the douche took him that far? I get why so I will wait at home with everything we need to get ready for him like medical supplies and things,” Jorel says. My dad smiles, and he knows that Jorel is like a mini version of him in the best way possible. “Yep, unfortunately we are that far away. Danny’s dozing off on me at the moment, so I am kinda hoping he sleeps through the pain until we can get him home,” dad says. I yawned again, and my dad rubbed my arm which wasn’t helping me in my battle against sleep. My dad does want me to sleep for at least half if not the whole 6 hours that we will be on the road for. “Okay dad, I will get some medical supplies and set the couch up. I can’t wait for him to be home again,” Jorel says, and our dad chuckles.

“That’s good, he can’t wait either even though he is very sleepy,” Miles says, and I smiled at him. I can’t wait to be at home. I wonder if Jorel knows I can hear him right now. “Yeah, I bet, it’s been a rough day for the little guy. Can you tell him that I love him?” Jorel asks and I grinned despite my eyes closing on their own. “Yeah, or you can tell him yourself. He has heard you this whole time,” Miles says, I heard Jorel gasp in shock. “Well in that case, I love you Danny and I can’t wait for you to come home,” Jorel tells me. I smiled, at looked towards my dad who angled the phone towards me a little more. “I love you too Jorel, tell Dylan I love him and I will be home soon,” I tell him, then I yawned a little louder than I expected.

The last thing I can remember is my father finishing up the call with Jorel and I was getting very tired. My dad quietly encourages me to fall asleep and I felt someone cover me with a soft blanket and my father thanking his bodyguard

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6 hours later – Jorel P.O.V

I heard the car pulling up and I nearly raced to the door to meet my dad and my little brother. Miles texted me saying Danny has slept through the entire journey and he was doing fine, and he was stable. George and I have set up the Futon to make Danny as comfortable as possible while George patches up any of the wounds that we know about that he received while he was in the scumbag’s hands. Everyone was up to date with what we all know so far and Dylan couldn’t wait to hold Danny in his arms. My dad says he was staying until Danny gets patched up and then has to leave to deal with the members of the Nine Lives gang that he caught today and then will come home tomorrow to look after my brother with us.

One of the bodyguards came in with Danny sleeping in his arms and placed him on the futon then left just as Miles walks in. “Told you Jorel, I would bring Danny back in one piece,” Miles tells me, and George starts patching Danny up. I am praying that Danny does stay asleep for the whole time. George has means of pain relief, but we cannot be sure that Danny does remember being rescued even though he told me he loves me over the phone. 6 long hours have passed, and my dad tried to get here as fast as he could push the speeding laws. “Yeah, I knew you would dad, I was just worried because of who had taken him,” I tell him. Danny was still asleep as George peeled the temporary dressings off Danny’s back to get them sorted first.

Miles went to make us some drinks and George went to work cleaning the stab wounds on my little brother’s back. Danny cried out in pain and woke up in tears. “Dad” he cries out and my heart broke. I jog over to our dad to tell him to comfort Danny who kept crying out for him. “Danny just woke up and is crying for you dad,” I tell him, and Miles put the finished drinks back down on the counter to go and comfort his son. I was going to be a good son and bring the drinks through while Danny is being comforted. “Shh, it’s okay Danny. You are safe right now little bear and you are home. Once George finishes patching you up you can be snuggled by Jorel or Dylan if you want to,” Miles says. He couldn’t hug Danny because of the wounds.

Our father plays with Danny’s his hair to help him calm down. There isn’t much that he could do to help Danny out with comfort at the moment. I walk over to him after putting the drinks on the coffee table and sit next to Danny’s head. “Don’t worry bro, we are all here for you right now and he can’t get to you anymore,” I tell him, I reached over and took one of his hands in mine and rubbed it. He was slowly calming down and getting used to the idea of being home and being safe. Dylan said he couldn’t wait around so he went out to a twenty-four-hour store to buy some things to spoil Danny with and Jordon went with him, so he wasn’t alone. I personally didn’t feel safe letting my brother’s boyfriend leaving on his own in the state he was in.

George made quick work of patching Danny’s back up and let me hold him while he patches up any injuries on the front. Danny was relaxing with my dad and I talking to him all the time. “Where’s Dylan?” Danny asks, I got him a glass of juice to help with the shock and he was slowly sipping at it with my support. “He’s gone out, he said he had an errand to run and Jordon has gone with him. He will be back soon,” I tell him. I looked to George who showed me he was texting Dylan to get him home as soon as possible so that we know everyone is safe. It was safe to say I was going to be authorising everyone entering and leaving until we know Aron is caught and dealt with.

Dylan came home quite quickly once he was aware Danny has returned. He was on his way home anyway, but he rushed. “Hey Danny, how come it was quite quiet when we found you?” our dad asks, obviously he wasn’t expecting the situation that he found Danny in. “The bailiffs showed up about two or three ish hours before you did. They put away everything they used to hurt me while the bailiffs were here then said there was no point bringing it back out because they knew you were coming,” Danny explains. I think he meant the mafia when referring to who was coming to rescue him. It is not normal for our dad to personally attend these kinds of missions. Because the person taken was his son he had to make sure that he was returned safely.

“I guess that makes sense, they didn’t want to cops to show up because of the weapons and then the mafia shows up and all hells breaks loose,” I say, then look to the front door as Dylan walks in with Jordon who had the bags. Danny’s eyes lit up and George had him on a good pain relief system which allowed for a cute scene to unfold. Dylan picks Danny up bridal style and holds him close. He just stood there for a moment taking it all in that Danny was home. Then Danny looked into his eyes and Dylan pressed his lips to my brothers. It was a cute reunion kiss to be fair on them. They were just both so happy to be back in one another’s arms. I was still planning on staying with them tonight just to make sure that Danny is okay.

Dad left after his coffee and promised us both he would be back in the morning and our mom was probably going to be here too. Dylan came back to the futon holding Danny who was tired again. I explained where Danny was found and stuff like that while George tried to scribble up a pain relief plan for Danny for the next few days. He is going to be very sore with all of these injuries that he has. It mostly involved us giving him pills and some drink every four hours but if he was in more pain then we think then George would inject him with morphine. We think he can cope with paracetamol and ibuprofen for now though. Danny yawns again and I smile. “I think it should be dinner then bedtime for you Danny. It’s been a rough day for sure,” I say, and he nods at me.

He hasn’t eaten in well over twelve hours, he was taken at roughly ten am. Arrived in San Fran at about 4 pm. Then was rescued at either 7 or 8 pm and it is early the next morning now because it is 1 am. He needs food and then he needs as much rest as possible, none of us mind him sleeping into the afternoon if he wishes and he feels like that is what his body needs right now. I am probably only going to cook him something basic like eggs and beans on toast. We all reluctantly had dinner before he returned because George had said it would have been better for us to try and keep a normal routine because we will be up late. I was cooking Danny’s dinner while he was comfortable with Dylan and George. Jordon was putting the stuff away.

“How is he Jorel?” Jordon asks, I knew he was referring to my little brother. I was now plating up Danny’s late dinner. “He seems to be fine for now, he is in shock though so all of what is going on around him hasn’t quite registered with him yet. He knows he is home, but sometimes he will grip us a little tighter for reassurance to make sure he is home and safe. It’s gonna be rough on him emotionally so we just have to comfort him when he needs us,” I tell him, I was getting cutlery and letting the beans cool down a little, so he could eat it almost straight away. He was going to be a very hungry little guy. “Yeah fair enough, he did so much for me when Matt died I have to repay by comforting him when he needs it,” Jordon says, and we take the dinner to Danny.

I gave him the option of having ketchup if he needed it, but he said so. He was happy to sit there and eat the food while we put a film on. Well, Jordon decided it was time for bed and George wanted to make sure Danny didn’t throw up after eating but he seems fine for now. We also wanted to make sure that Dylan knew about the pain management plan for Danny for the next few days since the three of us are going to be hard to separate in the next few days for sure. That is if the couple don’t mind me being there. “You can stay with us tonight Jorel,” Dylan says, and I chuckled. “Thanks Dylan, just want to make sure that you aren’t alone looking after my little bro and he can have all the cuddles he desires,” I say and Danny smiles.

“I like the cuddles,” Danny says as George takes his plate away to clean it and then head to bed himself. It is almost two am and we all need some sleep after the mess which has been today. “That’s good Danny, I don’t think you are going to have much choice on how many cuddles that you are going to get in the next week,” I tell him, and he smiles again. I am glad we can sort of override the pain and the sadness with distractions and cuddles which make him happy. George came back in and lifted Danny up for his cuddle. George is also the only one who can carry Danny, so he does need to carry the youngest to bed. “Well, its time for bed snuggles and very long lie ins I think,” George says and carries Danny up the stairs to his room.

I go into mine to get changed into my pyjamas, so I can join my brother and his boyfriend in their room. I could easily set up a camp bed, so I am not in the bed with them unless Danny asks me to be there which he might. George was helping him into his pyjamas while Dylan was cleaning his teeth, I cleaned mine a while ago. Danny managed to limp his way to the bathroom to clean his teeth while I set up his side of the bed to make it easier for him to get into. I had the camp bed all ready to go by the time Danny came back with Dylan’s help. “Are you sleeping on the floor Jorel?” Danny asks me. To be fair, he can’t quite see the camp bed I have set up down here. “Well, I was planning on sleeping on the camp bed down here,” I tell him, and he gets into bed with Dylan. Then he snuggled up to Dylan and patted the space on the other side.

“You can stay up here you know? I would feel a little safer with you next to me instead of on the floor,” Danny tells me, I knew he was going to be a bit frightened because of how rough his day has been. I would not want to be in his position then have someone deny them the comfort of feeling safe while he sleeps. “Yeah, I will stay with you bro. Don’t worry you are definitely safe with us around now. We won’t make the same mistake twice,” I tell him and lay next to him in bed. I wrapped my arms around him and Dylan did the same so that Danny would feel safe in the sandwich format we just did. It didn’t take him too long before he fell asleep in our arms and he held onto me a little with a loose grip on my shirt since Dylan doesn’t wear a shirt in bed.

“So glad we can start putting that ordeal behind us now,” Dylan tells me. I nod in agreement, we still had a light on so that we could see each other before we fell asleep because I knew we would want to talk. “Luckily it seems like the bailiffs made it a little easier on Danny and he wasn’t hurt too badly after that and these injuries will heal in time,” I tell him. George needs to go out in the morning to get a few more medical supplies that he ran out of while he was treating Danny like dressing pads to cover the wounds on his back to make him a little more comfortable. “Yeah, he will be fine now we have him back,” Dylan says and then he turns the light off and we both fall asleep not long after that.

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And that is the end of chapter 9 I hope you enjoyed. The next chapter is the last full chapter and then there will be an epilogue to wrap things up.


	11. Chapter 10

Hey guys this is the final chapter. The next chapter will be the Epilogue and then there will be a new story coming to fill the void this will leave. My question to you is which of these two stories do you want first?

A) Puppy Love-AU- George Ragan is an experienced hybrid owner, he has owned many different types. He is given the task of nursing a very ill abused hybrid back to health. This will be challenging but George is determined to do it.

Or

B) Lost Boys-AU- Everyone wants to find themselves, they want to know who they are and where they stand in the big world. If you are in the Lost Boys home in Los Angeles it could be even harder as you have to constantly fight to get yourself noticed. Surrounded by only boys 24/7 means they are going to experiment right??

All you guys need to do is write A or B in the comments!!!

Onto the story

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Danny p.o.v

“Hey, do you think Danny is going to wake up?” Dylan asks Jorel. I have no idea what is going on right now. The last thing I can remember is going to sleep in between them after I got rescued from Aron’s clutches. “It could be anytime any day. George said that Danny was in shock and has slipped into a little coma, but he is gonna be just fine. It’s been about three days now,” Jorel says, confirming the fact that I had no idea what day or month I am in right now. I felt really weak, probably weaker than I had been after Aron has beaten me before or when I have gone days without food working as a slave for other people. I felt Dylan’s hand on my cheek and I couldn’t help but smile, after everything we have been through he still loves me.

“I felt that smile bear,” he tells me. I don’t think he knows if I am truly awake or just acting on reflex. I decided to try and open my eyes to make them both feel a little more at ease and see where I go from there. It definitely took a few minutes, but I finally opened my eyes. “Hello Danny,” Dylan says once he sees me looking at him. “Hi Dylan,” I say, and he smiled. Jorel must have walked out after talking to Dylan or was at the door frame because I couldn’t see him anywhere. My voice was barely there, but the house is so quiet he heard me. “I was so worried about you,” Dylan says, he was sitting next to me on the bed and I reached out for his hand, so I could hold it tightly. “I know, but I am going to be okay,” I tell him, and he smiles.

George walked into the room about five minutes later and had a big grin on his face once he saw me sort of sitting up with the help of pillows. “How are you feeling Danny?” He asks, he was also doing a head to toe check on me. “Rough, but I think I will be okay with your help,” I tell him, being completely honest with the older man. I felt quite sore as well, it probably has been a will since I was last given medication. “Well, I will give you some meds then do these dressing changes okay?” George asks me, and I nod at him. I heard Jorel shouting downstairs and I looked to Dylan with one of my eyebrows raised. “Him and Jess have been fighting like this for weeks now. It got worse after you got taken,” George says.

“She wants his attention for herself and doesn’t get why he would want to spend time at your side trying to look after you while you need it,” Dylan says, trying to reassure me that their couple’s spat was not my fault. I wasn’t really going to blame myself, but the doubt always creeps in whenever something goes wrong. “To be honest, I never really liked Jess much,” I tell them while we wait for the pain medication to work. “Me neither Danny, there has always been something about her that hasn’t sat right with me,” George says. I think Dylan agrees with the pair of us, but it’s not up to us what happens to Jorel and Jess, it’s up to them. Now that I am not in any pain George decides to change the dressings like he probably has been doing for the three days I was comatose.

“Danny, do you know what day it is right now?” Dylan asks me, he was checking his phone. I don’t know why he was asking me that, I don’t know what day it is at the moment. “Uh, not really no,” I tell him. The last date I can remember is probably the 11th of July. “Danny it’s the fourteenth of July today,” Dylan tells me, that makes sense to me because I heard Jorel say that it has been about three days since I was brought home and slipped into a coma. “How was I asleep that long?” I ask, George had finished patching me up, so Dylan was now holding me in his arms. Dylan was so happy to hold me in his arms. “You were in a lot of shock when you came home so you ended up in a little coma for three days. I am sure you will be fine now though, we can keep an eye on you and help you recover,” George tells me.

I heard more shouting and I wanted to hide. Dylan rubbed my arms and smiled at me. “It’s going to be okay Danny. Jorel is not gonna hurt you,” George says, he knew more about my past then the others because I felt more confident in telling him what happened in my childhood and stuff. “I know Jorel won’t hurt me, but I still don’t like shouting,” I tell him, letting Dylan know a little more about me. Dylan looked at me and then pressed his lips against mine, I kissed him back instantly because I had missed kissing him. “That’s okay Danny, we will try to keep the shouting to the absolute minimum,” Dylan tells me, and I smile at him. I love Dylan so much and I appreciate how willing they are to help me through my different issues.

I heard some more shouting followed by a door slam. Then I heard a frustrated sigh and footsteps up the stairs. I was not afraid, Jorel would be happy to see me awake and to see that I was doing better and feeling better than I was when I first arrived home after my kidnapping. I could see the anger melt away as soon as he was at the door frame and saw me awake and smiling at him. “Danny,” he says and rushes towards me so that he could hug me tightly. “Hi Jorel, I am feeling better now,” I tell him. He knows I am not feeling one hundred percent yet, but it is better than being comatose. I hug him back and he joins the other two on the bed. “That’s good Danny. I was so worried when we woke up the morning after you were rescued and we couldn’t wake you up,” Jorel tells me.

I know he was scared for my wellbeing, our father would have been too. “I know, but with you guys looking after me I know I am going to be alright,” I tell him. George looked to Jorel and put his hand on the slightly younger man’s shoulder. “Are you okay Jorel?” George asks him, we all know that he had an argument with Jess before he came up the stairs to come and see how I was doing. “I guess so, I mean Jess and I are not together anymore but to be honest with you I saw this coming,” he tells us. They never really got along after a few weeks of dating each other and the cracks were showing up very quickly. “You don’t need her anyway. I am sure that Vanessa lady we met a few weeks back would love to get into a relationship with you in time,” I tell him.

He has always been impressed by my memory and how far back I am able to remember things. Like he could tell me he has an appointment in three months’ time and the week before I would go and remind him that he had it. “Yeah, I could ask Vanessa in a few weeks’ time if she would like to be my girlfriend. I think she would be a better girlfriend for me than Jess was,” Jorel says and I smile at him. I am so glad that I have been able to find a family like this one, they are perfect for me in every single way. I decided to leave Dylan’s lap for a moment and sit with Jorel so that my brother can soak up the fact that I am home, and I am safe now. “I still can’t believe he went all the way to San Francisco to escape our father,” Jorel says.

I felt more comfortable talking with them about my experience and I went into more detail about what exactly went on in San Francisco that day. They were all shocked by the level of violence that I endured from the moment I was knocked out to the moment the bailiffs arrived. I only knew about what went on while I was unconscious because they were bragging about it when I was coming around. Jorel held me tighter in his arms, he hated all of this but the main people who did this to me are dead now. Well, Aron is still on the run from us and he will be found eventually. Miles has his best men look for him. “Dad’s coming over in a little while by the way Danny, he has been very worried about you,” Jorel says, he shows me a bunch of messages he has received from our dad and he has been very worried about both of us.

“Not surprised Jorel, Miles would be very worried about his first and second heir especially when they are under threat from a very strong witty enemy like Aron,” George tells the both of us. He knows that’s probably the only time that Aron is going to get complimented by any one of us. “I didn’t know I was the second heir,” I tell him. I wasn’t quite sure how the whole mafia thing works. Surely because I knew I was the youngest child of Miles Decker I was last in line to be godfather. “Miles has the authority to change the order of who is next to become godfather as he sees fit. Since you have behaved better and given him a higher reputation, so you have been bumped up to second in line. The mafia doesn’t really care for which order the children are born in,” Jorel tells me.

That is gonna mean that my brothers that aren’t Jorel will hate me. Our sister supports us, and I think she is third in line to becoming the head of the mafia. “He’s asking what everyone wants for lunch,” Jorel says, he was looking at his phone again. “Should we tell him Danny’s awake or wait until he sees us?” George asks Jorel. He knows what must of us want from where he’s going anyway. “Well, could ask for some soup for Danny in case he wakes up then when Dad gets here he can see Danny awake. Since it has been four days since the kidnap with no food I think soup is the best option for him right now,” Jorel says and smiles at me. I don’t think I would even want to eat more than soup right now. Food doesn’t seem all the good to me right now.

“Yeah, best to give Danny light food today. His body will need food, but he could throw up at anything other than soup,” George replies. I don’t know when he made himself the medic of the group, but I was glad he did because I would have ended up back in hospital by now and I was put off by that one time I went to have my appendix taken out. I am still quite comfy in Jorel’s arms, but I could see Dylan really wanted another hug, so I carefully moved from Jorel to Dylan. “I don’t think I could eat more than soup either if I am honest,” I tell them and Dylan wraps his arms around me carefully. I watched Jorel when he sent the food order to dad and said just in case I wake up to keep it a surprise that I had actually woken up an hour ago.

“That’s okay Danny, you will be back to your healthy self in no time,” George tells me. He’s always been optimistic about everyone recovering from whatever happens to them. I am sure when they couldn’t wake me the afternoon after I was rescued that they had flashbacks to when my appendix burst, and I was in a coma in hospital. Dylan kisses my cheek and I try not to blush. I am willing to admit that I am head over heels in love with Dylan Alvarez. “We are going to make sure that my little bear gets better,” Dylan replies and lets me kiss him back on his cheek. Then I glanced over to Jorel and gave him a sad smile. “It’s okay Danny, you be happy with your boyfriend. I wasn’t happy with Jess anyway. Like you said Vanessa is probably a much better match for me,” Jorel says and he smiles at me.

“How do you do that?” Jordon asks, he walked in a minute before Dylan let me kiss him. Jorel can tell what we are thinking and answer our questions before we can even ask him them. “I knew when Danny wanted to give Dylan a kiss that he was worried about upsetting me because Jess and I just broke up. It really doesn’t bother me though. I would rather have a happy brother on the road to recovery than a girlfriend right at this moment,” Jorel says. I saw our Dad at the door frame and he looked overjoyed to see me awake and probably doing better than I have done these last few days. “This is why you are my first heir Jorel. Always putting others ahead of yourself, but at the same time making sure your needs are being met too,” Miles says, making Jorel jump.

Jordon and George took the bags of lunch off our dad, so they could plate it up for people and allow the four of us to have a little private moment. “He’s right Jay, I can see you being a great Godfather once that day comes,” Dylan says. We don’t really talk about heirs and stuff that much because we know to become the Godfather the previous one has to die and none of us are ready for that to happen yet. “Anyway, I am glad that Danny’s awake now. How are you feeling?” Miles asks me, dropping the serious tone for a more comforting fatherly tone. He was desperate to hug me as well, but he was waiting. “A bit rough, but I will be okay dad,” I tell him, and he holds me close in his arms. Jorel told me how scared he was of loosing me when he was told that I had gone comatose.

I wrap my arms around him and I let him hold me. He was so worried about me and I just wanted to give him that reassurance that I was on the mend now. “So glad you’re awake Danny. I was so worried when Jorel told me you were comatose. I thought they had succeeded in trying to kill you,” Miles says and Jorel and I tried to calm him down. “They didn’t get a chance to kill me dad. They won’t get the chance to do it again either,” I tell him. I know my injuries are bad, the gashes on my back are pretty large but they are slowly healing, and I will be fine. It hasn’t even been a week since the incident, so I know better than to expect a miracle cure at this point in time. “I know Danny, but I have seen first hand what rivals can do when they get hold of someone they want,” he tells me.

He must have seen some gruesome things in his time and lost many of his great men to rivals. I am glad that he is able to get comfort from holding me in his arms. “Yeah, even I have seen some of it and I would hate if it happened to you Danny. When rivals get their hands-on people who they want they are ruthless,” Jorel says and hugs Miles and I tightly. I reach around so I can hug them both back at the same time. I was not in pain anymore which is good, George did say we would keep up giving me pain meds every four hours though anyway until my back has healed and so have the other injuries. “I just love you boys so much and I don’t want to lose either of you,” Miles says and I knew he was crying.

I hate how stressful this has been for him. I hate how because of Aron good people have died and we still haven’t managed to catch the bastard after he has killed our men. Jorel was rubbing our dad’s back and I was trying as best as I could to do the same. “We know Dad, we both love you too,” Jorel says, and it prompts me to say something to make dad feel a little better about what has happened over the last week or so. “Either way you have been more of a father to me than I have ever had before so at least these last few months have been the best,” I tell him. I think my little speech sounded a lot better in my head then it did when I actually spoke, but the message still got across. He holds us both tightly, even tighter than before.

“You two boys are so precious to me,” he tells us, and we hug him back. Then the others walk in with our lunch and we have a little picnic on my bed. I was back in Dylan’s arms as I slowly sipped on the soup which had been put into a mug for me. I still feel quite weak, but I am not expecting myself to be back at full strength just yet. Jorel was passing Dylan little chunks of bread to give to me so I had a little bit more food than just soup on its own. I was sure by the time I got halfway through my lunch that I wasn’t about to throw up. Miles was so happy to have me back, he didn’t really get a chance to enjoy it when I was brought back since he had to rush off to deal with nine lives. Luckily in exchange for their lives they gave us some information on where we could find Aron, so Miles sent some of his men to go and investigate it.

“Any news on Aron yet?” Jorel asks, we were focusing more on me at first but now I am okay it’s time to ask some other important questions. “Yeah, we have managed to find him. It’s just a matter of time before I get the news that we have him. I still want his death to be up to you and Daniel. I think after everything you have been through together you deserve that at least,” Miles says. Since it was more of a formal conversation he called me Daniel, but that is one of the rare few times he has done it since he adopted me. “Danny and I will do it together, it may be tough on you since it technically is your first kill, but we will guide you every step of the way,” Jorel tells me. I knew that day was going to come.

I think it is practically impossible to be in a mafia or a gang and not participate in at least one killing. It’s like a right of passage for a new gang member. I am glad that Jorel will help me through this because right now I don’t think I can go through is on my own. I wouldn’t have the strength to go through with it since he would be pleading for his life. This is all ifs at the moment though because we don’t have him yet and I think Jorel is going to plan this out with me so that it can go smoothly, and we will achieve the end result that we need to. I know how to use a gun, Jorel taught me not long after I joined because he told me I needed to defend myself whenever I need to. I just decided not to take a gun along with me because most of the time I am not alone and if I am I don’t go very far.

“Danny how are you feeling now?” Jorel asks me. He noticed that I started to have a little trouble keeping my eyes open. We were now talking about anything other than what happened with me. It has been about an hour since we have had lunch and I am starting to get really tired. “I’m alright, just tired I guess,” I tell him. Jordon and George had gone to sort somethings out in our designated kill room for the time when Aron is caught. Dylan and Jorel were desperate to make sure that I was okay. They have both been very worried about me like my father is too. “You should get some rest my boy, I will be back tomorrow,” Miles tells me and then hugs me tightly before hugging Jorel and leaving. We all said our goodbyes to him.

“Dad’s right you know Danny, a little nap isn’t going to hurt you,” Jorel tells me. I had started yawning a lot and I knew a nap would do me some good. “Yeah, I think a nap sounds good right now,” I tell him, and I lie down in bed and snuggle up with him. “I will be back later Danny, going to get you a present,” Dylan tells me. The last thing he got me that wasn’t for my birthday was my promise ring. “Oh, okay Dylan, don’t go for too long,” I say, the fear of all of the guys abandoning me is still very much real but I try not to show it to them at all. He picks me up and I hold on tightly. I think he knew of the fear. “Don’t worry baby I promise you that by the time you wake up from your nap that I will be right here with you,” Dylan tells me, and I smile at him.

“I will be here with you anyway Danny so if you need someone then I will be here holding you,” Jorel tells me and Dylan puts me down so Jorel can hug me and I can fall asleep while he goes on this mystery present buying adventure. “Have a good nap baby,” Dylan tells me then kisses me on the lips. I kiss him back and smile at him. “Have a good trip bear,” I tell him, and he reluctantly leaves me. I know he wants to stay, but at the same time he wants to give this present to me, so he is going to leave for a little while. “Just let me know if you need anything Danny,” Jorel says, then he yawns as well. I think he has been staying up to keep an eye on me. “Are you gonna nap with me Jay, you seem tired too?” I ask him, and he shakes his head.

“I’ll be fine Danny you go to sleep,” He tells me, and I hug him. He hugs me back and for a brief moment I saw him close his eyes and then open them again. I am going to fall asleep and then he is probably going to fall asleep with me in a little while. We can both be really stubborn at times and moments like this really show how alike we are. “Okay Jorel, we’ll see how that goes,” I tell him, and he chuckles at me. We act like this all the time and I am so happy that he gets to be my brother and we can have that bond with each other. I was so tired though, so my eyes kept closing on their own as I snuggled up to Jorel and fell asleep.

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A few hours later – Danny p.o.v

As promise I woke up sandwiched between Jorel and Dylan. Jorel was fast asleep like I predicted, and Dylan was watching me with a smile on his face. “Hey baby, how are you feeling now?” he asks me. Then the pain of my injuries hit me. I think I have been without pain medication for a little while now and it had worn off. “In pain, a lot of pain, but I will be okay,” I tell him, and he looks worried about me. “Okay Danny, I will get George and he will sort it out for you,” he tells me, and the he jogs out the room in search of George. I was in so much pain I was trying not to cry and not to wake up Jorel who was peacefully sleeping next to me. I struggled for about five minutes before I couldn’t keep the tears back any longer and I was silently sobbing in Jorel’s arms. He was still asleep while I was crying and that was good I don’t want him to wake up.

George came in with a worried look on his face and sat next to me on the bed. He didn’t touch my back but that was where the pain was the worst, so I didn’t want him to. “There is gonna be a sharp scratch Danny but don’t panic because the pain will go away within five minutes,” George tells me, that leads me to believe he is giving me morphine. I tried to relax as much as I could while he was doing this. “It’s gonna be okay,” Dylan says. They decided once the pain relief was working to have a look at my back and see what was going on. “Oh, whatever they used on you must have been rusty or something Danny. It turns out infection has set in as well,” George tells me. That means he will have to take the stiches out then clear out the infection and re-stitch my wounds.

“Yeah, can I be knocked out for this bit?” I ask when he tells me what he has to do to help me recover. Jorel was still fast asleep in bed next to me and I was grateful that he was. “Yeah, I can sedate you for it. I wasn’t going to do it without sedating you because it’s not going to be comfortable,” George tells me, and I apricated his honesty. Dylan smiled at him and offered his assistance in patching me up and George was happy to have a helper. They set up everything they needed and Jorel had started waking up. “You can go back to sleep if you want Jay,” George tells him. He couldn’t quite see what they were doing though. “You sure?” Jorel asks, he went to sit up and saw all the equipment they had laid out. It was only going to be a light sedation, no general anaesthetic.

“What’s going on?” Jorel asks, he was worried now. I had my shirt off and the wounds exposed. I offered him a reassuring smile. “There’s just some infection we are going to deal with, it’s not a major issue,” George says. and he goes through the steps with Jorel who then decided that he was going to accept the offer of going back to sleep because he was still tired. He knows I am in safe hands with George and I was going to be staying in this room. Jorel was soon fast asleep and George smiled at him. “Poor Jay, he hasn’t slept since you fell into the coma,” George tells me, and I played with Jorel’s hair. I kinda knew that was the case because of how exhausted he looked earlier. “He doesn’t need to worry now, I am okay,” I tell them and the both nod in agreement.

“Yep, you’re going to feel a sharp scratch again and then it’s sleepy time,” George tells me and then shortly after I feel the sharp scratch in my hand. Dylan holds my hand and I start feeling really tired.

~ a few days later~ Danny p.o.v~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think I have been recovering quite well from the infection and the injuries I received a week ago. Dylan says now that I can leave the house he is going to surprise me, and we are going to have a good day together. Miles says he is coming over later and he has some news for us. We are already in the car on the way to our first adventure location. I was excited, and Miles texted me to say that bodyguards are nearby but try not to focus on it and enjoy my time with my boyfriend. I have to have them now especially since there is a high risk of me being taken again by Aron and he could probably hire new men to help him. “I am going to make sure that you love today Danny,” he tells me as we pull up to Venice beach.

He knew that I have never been to a beach because one day we were discussing my childhood and I mentioned that slavery didn’t allow time for fun activities like walking on a beach, playing in the sea or feeling the sand between your toes. He looked to me as I realised where we arrived and smiled at me. “How about a beach date bear?” he asks me. He was grinning at my reaction still and I was just in awe. “A beach date sounds amazing,” I reply, and he gets out the car and sets up everything on the beach where he wanted it and then opened my door and held my hand as I got out. I was wearing flip flops, so I just kicked them off and he picked them up with his other hand. I just had to feel the sand between my toes. I took my first steps on the beach and smiled. I enjoyed it so much, it was so soft and slightly warm.

“I’m glad you are liking this Danny,” Dylan tells me. We had spent some time messing around on the beach in the sand and had a bit of a splash in the sea. Now we were having a quiet picnic and I was loving every minute of it. I prefer dates like these to more complicated and expensive ones. “I’m glad you had this idea. I had no idea that you remembered that I told you I had never been to a beach before,” I tell him as he feeds me some strawberries. I was feeding him some grapes when he asked me too. “Well, when you said that I knew I had to plan a beach date and after you got taken I had to wait until you were well again, so it gave me time to plan it thoroughly,” he tells me. This is the side of Dylan that hardly anyone sees, and I am glad I am one of the only ones who gets to see it and experience his thoughtfulness and consideration.

Then I got one of the biggest shocks in my life. Dylan had stood up and pulled me up to my feet. Then he got down on one knee and brought out a box. Inside the box was a beautiful black diamond engagement ring. The same one I had been looking on my laptop at six months ago. “Danny, we may not have been together for as long as other couples, but you light up my world. Will you do me the honours of marrying me?” Dylan asks me as happy tears fall down my cheeks. “Yes,” I tell him. He puts the ring on my finger and it’s a perfect fit. Then he stands up and I wrap my arms around him as we share a sweet and passionate kiss.

Miles was waiting for us when we got home. Dylan had asked for permission to marry me and I only knew that because of the knowing look in his eyes when I walked in giddy from the excitement of the day. “I’m glad you enjoyed your date Danny. I have some news to share with you all,” he tells us, and we go to the meeting room. First, he allows us to announce our engagement and everyone is happy about that. “Secondly, I have some news regarding Aron. We have found him, and we now have him,” Miles says.

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And that is the end of Chapter 10. The epilogue will be uploaded next month along with one of the new stories I listed above. I hope you enjoyed!!


	12. Epilogue

This is the final chapter of Slave I hope you enjoyed. I am going to start uploading Lost Boys once a month and that will have ten chapters. After that there will be another ten-chapter story called Puppy Love.

Enjoy

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Danny p.o.v

“How’s Danny been doing since he woke up?” I hear my father ask either Jorel or Dylan, I wasn’t sure who. Since his visit about a week ago he has been busy trying to capture Aron since it was proving more difficult than first thought. “He’s been okay, we have been battling a bit of infection on the deep cuts in his back and that’s hit him hard. He is doing a lot better, he is awake quite a bit of the day, but he does need a few naps,” Jorel explains. I rolled over, so I wasn’t on my back anymore and I think Jorel noticed. My back was quite sore, and the infection wasn’t quite gone yet. “I see, might keep him on bed rest for a little longer. We can have my best torture Aron until he begs for death anyway. More fun that way,” I hear our dad say.

Dad would want him to feel the pain of what he did to me, so would the others if they were given half the chance. “That would be quite good to be honest dad. I think Danny does need a little bit longer to recover and it would be amazing to have Aron feel the pain that he has put Danny through,” Jorel says, then I felt a weight on the edge of the bed closest to me. I felt a hand in my hair and I couldn’t stop the smile. “Morning my Danny bear,” my dad says, and I open my eyes to look at him. He looked really tired, but he has been working endlessly to try and find Aron, so I wasn’t really that surprised that he was tired at this point. “Morning Dad,” I say, and he smiles at me. Jorel was at the door, smiling but then he said he was going to get me some breakfast, so he left a minute later.

“Jay says you haven’t been feeling well?” dad asks me, I know I heard the conversation he had with Jorel a few minutes ago but he thought that I was asleep at the time. “Yeah, my back went all bad. It hurts a lot still,” I tell him, and he puts his hand on my forehead. I was still lying on my stomach, but I Iifted my head up so that he could check my temperature. “I know buddy, I am going to look after you today. You still have a bit of a fever,” he tells me, and then rubs my cheek with his finger. I love having a father figure around. It is so nice to have his support and someone I can call up when I need him. I slowly sit up with his help because my back was still sore while it heals. I just wanted to hug my dad.

I carefully hugged him, and he hugged me back. “I’m sorry if I worried you dad,” I tell him, just as Jorel comes back with breakfast and pain medication for me. “Don’t be sorry Danny. A father has many jobs when it comes to raising their children and one of them is to worry when their child isn’t well or have been hurt. I know you are going to be fine, but I really wanted to be with you and Jorel and I couldn’t while we were searching for Aron,” he tells me, and I smile at him. Jorel gave me my breakfast after a hug and I looked up at him with the tray on my lap. “Thanks Jorel,” I tell him and he smiles at me. “You’re welcome little brother,” he tells me. He sits on the other side of me while I eat my breakfast.

“George is going to come and clean your back up again Dan, just so that we make sure with the antibiotics you’re on and the cleaning wipes out the infection quickly,” he tells me. We’ve been on a semi-strict routine where George would come and clean my wounds once or twice a day depending on how I have been feeling and whether or not it needs cleaning. For the last sort of 5 days I have been on some pretty powerful antibiotics which have left me feeling wiped out as a result. Dylan has gone food shopping with Jordon since Jorel will not let us go out on our own while Aron is still at large. Jorel takes the dishes away to be cleaned while I get some cuddle time with our dad before the dressings get changed.

“You will be feeling good soon Danny. I know that with George as a medic then you will be better in no time,” dad says, and I try and relax in his arms despite the back pain I am in at the moment. George comes in and I get a little nervous. I haven’t reacted the best to having this done in the past with the amount of pain I ended up in and I was bawling my eyes on it Jorel’s arms and I was begging for the pain to end. He knows this and I think they had a plan for me since this infection didn’t want to clear up. “Hey Danny, I’m just going to have a look at your back today. I have arranged with a friend of mine for you to get the infection surgically removed tomorrow. I sent him pictures and he said that would be the best course of action for you,” George says.

“Is it really that bad? I know the infection is bothering him but surely it would have cleared up by now?” my dad asks George, he hadn’t seen my back and to be honest neither have I. I know George has taken plenty of pictures of it to send it to his doctor friend, but I have not asked to see them. I am not a squeamish guy, but I don’t think I want those images to haunt my dreams like the actual event has been doing. “I’ll show you now Miles. It’s the worst that I have seen, nothing seems to be working to get rid of it which makes me suspect they put something on the tools that they were using in hopes of killing him after he had been rescued but since they don’t know how good we are medically they failed big time,” George says, I was beginning to suspect myself that they had put something on their tools.

I don’t have a shirt on, we decided because of how frequently I got a fever that it wasn’t worth it, and it made it easier for when George had to take a look at my back to see how the wound was healing. I just have this massive dressing covering my back. Dad let my take his hands as George peeled the dressing off my back. I gripped his hands so tight I was scared that I was going to break them. “It’s okay buddy, you grip my hands however tightly you need to,” my dad says when George has about half of the dressing off. He has now seen how bad it looks and how red and sore it is. “Right, I am going to count to three and then it’s off okay Danny?” George says, and I nod. I just want it over and done with now.

“One…Two…Three,” George says, and then I felt intense pain all over my back and I cried out. It tugged on some of the wound itself. Jorel came running into the room and rubbed my chest to comfort me. “I can see why surgery is the only option now, poor Danny that looks so sore,” dad says, now that he has had a good look at my back. I was on morphine for the pain it left me in and I was taking deep breaths to try and push through that burst of pain. “Yeah, I’m sorry Danny for making the pain worse. I just had to get that off quickly,” George tells me. Then I remember when one of the slave masters would tell me that it was better to rip a band-aid off quickly then doing it slowly because that just makes the pain worse.

“It’s okay George, I know it needed to come off. The pain from that is only temporary,” I tell him. He knew the pain medication I had hasn’t really kicked in yet, but when it does I am going to be more comfortable then I am right now. “How are your hands dad?” Jorel asks, I had released my grip on his hands now. Our dad rubbed his hands and I felt kinda bad even though he told me that I could hold his hands as tightly as I needed to. “They are fine, I was expecting him to squeeze harder, but it was still quite gentle. When you pulled the rest of it off he did squeeze a little harder, but it didn’t really hurt,” dad says. I suppose he does have a high pain threshold because of all the things he has been through during his life.

“I didn’t want to hurt you dad,” I tell him, and I felt him squeeze my hand gently. He knows that because of what I have been through I am quite a gentle natured person. I don’t want to unintentionally put anyone through pain that doesn’t deserve it like my dad. I would however, love to give Aron hell for what he has done to me. “I know Danny, but I know if something like this happens that it won’t hurt and even if does then it will be fine because if it makes my son feel better then nothing matters. I would walk through fire for you and Jorel,” he tells me and Jorel. We both smile at him. I know how much he cares about us and it was a weird thing to get used to, but I am starting to get used to it and enjoy it.

“I’m going to update my friend to make sure that you definitely get the operation done tomorrow Danny. Then we can sort out the medication and stuff so that you can come off it,” George tells me. That sounds like a good idea to me. I don’t really want to be on this medication anymore, and the slight hospital stay is going to be worth it. “Is it going to be a whole day affair or a couple of days?” my dad asks George, since George is arranging it all he knows more details about it. “I am hoping that since I am technically the main medic here that my friend will do the op, then send Danny home on the same day so I can keep an eye on him as he recovers over the next few days,” George says. It does seem like it would be a thing that would only take most of a day to do.

“Okay, so you, Jorel and Dylan take him. Let me know when he gets to go home then I will come over to spend some time with him,” dad says, and I smiled. I am glad that I have that role in my life who will come and support me after the quite major operation that I am going to go through tomorrow to fix the damage Aron and his Nine Lives crew did to my back. “Yeah, might be just me and Jay tomorrow. I haven’t asked Dylan about it, but I knew the whole appendix thing made him uncomfortable, so it might be better for him to keep an eye on Danny when he gets home,” George says. That does sound better than the three of them being with me in the hospital. It is also more than likely that George can be helping his friend operate on me.

“That makes sense George. If Dylan is not comfortable waiting around in hospital then we can get Jordon to keep him occupied with some tasks left to do in the kill room before Aron arrives while we wait for Danny to have his op done and then see how he does afterwards and get an idea of when he is coming home,” Jorel tells me and the others. I really just wanted to relax completely in dad’s arms but the back pain was stopping me until I turned around, so my head was resting on his shoulder and we were chest to chest on the bed. I did all my movements slowly and carefully, so I didn’t rip anything open or make the pain worse by accident. I felt dad mess around with my hair a little bit which I felt quite soothing.

“You okay there Danny?” he asks me, and I nodded. Dad is very worried about me and I didn’t want him to be. Then again he will say that it his job as my father to worry like my mom probably did about me when she wasn’t with me. “Yeah, I just want my cuddle,” I tell him, and I felt the vibration of his chuckle. He loves how something so simple comforts me so much and he often comes over just, so we can have an evening where we are cuddling each other. “That’s fine by me Danny. We can sit here and cuddle all day if you wish,” dad says, George had to leave the room to take a phone call with his friend. Jorel smiled and carefully joined the cuddle session because he probably felt a little left out because dad was hugging me.

“I really enjoy taking some time out to be with you boys. Even if we just spend the day being lazy and just cuddle and watch TV in bed,” Dad says, since we live in the Undead base he doesn’t get to see us as much as he sees Larissa and the others. I hadn’t noticed the television was already on in the background but Jorel just turned the volume up on it. “I enjoy spending time with you too dad. I wish you could come over more often,” Jorel says and I nod to show that I agreed with him. I miss dad a lot when he isn’t here. “Well, since both of you seem to think that way. I am sure I can spare more time out of my week to come and spend a few hours with you,” he says, and he chuckles when he hears my muffled cheer.

“I agree with Danny. It would be so good if that could happen,” Jorel says and I look at him, so he could see my smile since he said he wanted me to smile some more around him. Now the pain has finally subsided I carefully turn back around so my back is resting against dad’s chest, so we could all watch a movie which happened to be a mafia movie. I found it funny that the three main people in one mafia are watching a mafia movie. “Yep, it’s weird to say that this house is calmer than back home even though there is no Aron threat back home. It’s mostly your brothers bickering over who should be heir first or not,” dad says and Jorel and I sigh. I hate it when I hear about our brothers having a fight because I was adopted into the family and not long after promoted to second in line to become Godfather which meant I over took them.

They think it is like the royal family where it goes in age order which would put me at the bottom of the list. Sadly, as they have discovered it doesn’t work like that and Larissa was third in line anyway, so they were fourth and fifth in line which means there is a lower chance of them actually becoming the Godfather before they died. “They still don’t accept Danny into the family do they?” Jorel asks and I look to dad just as he shakes his head. “Your sisters do, and your mom does, they have happily welcomed him to our family and treated him like he has always been here. The boys are a different story all together and I don’t see them changing their minds any time soon,” dad says. Mom has been very worried about me since she heard of Aron taking me and torturing me for hours before dad found me.

She has been getting regular updates from Jorel daily and she has even come to visit me a few times which has been nice. I am slowly adjusting to her being my mother now. Of course, she is never going to replace the woman who gave birth to me and raised me in the early years before I turned fourteen, but I love having her there when I need her and to have that motherly support that I thought was completely lost when my birth mom died. “Oh, I just remembered, the boys are being sent by me on a slight wild goose chase for the next few days. Maybe after you come home from the op Danny you and Jorel can stay with us for a couple of days. Your mom and sisters would love it,” dad says, and I smiled. That sounds like a good idea and it would be nice to spend more time with mom and the girls.

“That would be nice. I know mom has worried about me and Dan a lot and no amount of discussion over the phone is going to fix that. She wants to see us in person and then she will relax more,” Jorel says. I felt bad for mom because she has been worrying so much and I am too nervous to make a phone call to reassure her that everything with me is fine. “Jorel, if you call mom later can you help me talk to her? I know she is worried about me, but I have always been too nervous to talk on the phone,” I ask, I know that he would help me and maybe even dad will help me. Jorel knows how bad I am at talking on the phone. I nearly had a nervous breakdown ordering pizza once but Jorel helped me through it.

“Sure thing Danny, and tomorrow dad can help you and we can slowly but surely build your confidence up to the point where you are talking on the phone on your own,” Jorel tells me. So, if we keep working on this day by day then soon enough I can just order a pizza on my own without getting a panic attack. “Jorel’s right Danny, we can work on building your confidence up with the phone. Might not do it tomorrow though if you are feeling a bit under the weather from the surgery,” dad tells us. That is a good point, if I get to come home tomorrow after the surgery on my back then I don’t think I’d be feeling up to making a phone call. All I would want to do is cuddle my family and sleep. I do count George and Jordon as my family even though its not the same as Jorel’s relationship with me.

“Yeah, I forgot for a moment about that. We have plenty of time to build up your confidence, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it now. Let’s focus on getting your back fixed up first,” Jorel says and George walks back in a minute later. It seems like he has finished on the phone with his friend who would be doing the surgery on me then. “Keith said he is going to make you the priority patient tomorrow morning. He agrees that your back has gotten worse and it needs dealing with sooner rather than later,” George says, and I smiled at him. I am willing to go through any pain necessary to get my back sorted out and I wouldn’t have to deal with the infection anymore. I’d rather have two or one ugly scar on my back then the infection scabs.

“It does mean that from midnight onwards you can’t have anything to eat or drink Danny. It’s going to be an early start but worth it,” George says, and I nod. I understood because Dylan had told me what usually happens before an operation but that didn’t happen with me last time because it was an emergency case. I had to have that operation done as soon as possible so that my life was saved. Tomorrow is going to be very different to my first experience in the hospital and I know that George is trying his best to make it the shortest stay possible for me. He knows that I was put off hospitals by what happened last time and by how bad my treatment was at some points, I was left without pain medication for hours because they thought I had become addicted to it when in reality I needed it to get through the day.

I was so tired; the pain medication had finally started doing its magic and I was very comfortably resting in my dad’s arms. “Are you getting sleepy there Danny?” dad asks me, and I nodded straight away. He made sure that we are comfortably lying down together in the bed and I was going to be okay when I do fall asleep in his arms in a short while. “That’s okay Danny, you go to sleep buddy. Today is all about resting for you before your surgery tomorrow,” dad tells me, and I smiled at him. I get settled in his arms and close my eyes. I knew Dylan wasn’t home yet, but he was fine, and he would be home soon enough. Whatever he was doing was important and I didn’t want to worry him unnecessarily.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

4 days later – Danny p.o.v

“Morning baby,” Dylan says, I had been up for a few hours suffering in silence. The surgery went fine three days ago but I am still in pain every now and then and I didn’t want to disturb anyone when I woke up at four this morning in a bit of pain. “Morning babe,” I tell him, and I hug him gently in bed. I want to go back to sleep as well but I think that we are dealing with Aron today. I know the day after my surgery dad had to go to his base because they had captured Aron and he wanted to dish some punishments out on my behalf first. I think it might be sometime next week before we actually kill him just because I was not really fit enough to carry it out yet and the others wanted me to make the final blow.

“Do you want some breakfast in bed?” Dylan asks me, and I shake my head. I want to move around a little bit more and I could always rest on the sofa if I need to because I would probably get tired and want to get a nap in when I have the chance. “I want to go and join the others downstairs Dylan. I know I can get some rest on the sofa if I need to and I am going to take it easy during the day,” I tell him, and he smiles at me. He gets up at turn to look at me. “That’s fine Danny, I wasn’t going to keep you in bed another day. I think George would agree that it would be good if you could get up and move around a little bit today,” he tells me, and I smile as he stretches his hand out, so I could take it and he could help me up to my feet.

I stand up and wait a moment, so I can get my balance and hold onto Dylan for support when I need him to. “I knew that, I just didn’t know if people wanted me to stay in bed for another day or not. I am quite done with bed rest to be honest with you,” I tell him, and he chuckles at me. I think I have been on solid bed rest since the day I had been found by my dad. “Yeah fair enough Danny, the only time you haven’t had bed rest so far is when you travelled to the hospital for surgery,” Dylan tells me, and I smile at him. I slowly walk towards the bathroom with Dylan’s help and I went to use the toilet. “Where’s Danny?” I hear George ask, its about 8 am right now so he would be coming to give me the first dose of medication for the day.

“In the bathroom George, he says he is ready for doing a little bit of moving around today,” Dylan says, and he left me in the bathroom, so I could have some privacy. When I was done in the bathroom I walked into the bedroom to see George with the glass of water and the pills I had been prescribed. “That’s good, I want him to move around today anyway. Just so that he gets his strength back and things like that,” George tells me. It was exactly like what Dylan had told me just minutes ago. I take the pills and chase them down with the water before I walk with George and Dylan to go and meet the others in the kitchen so that I could have some breakfast. Mom and Larissa were in the kitchen and making breakfast when I walked into the kitchen.

“Oh morning Danny, wasn’t expecting you to be up and wandering today,” Jordon says and Larissa turns around to see me. She gives me a gentle hug and mom was too busy cooking to give me a hug right now. “It’s about time for Danny to try and get back into his normal routine. Can’t have him staying in bed all the time now and he’s getting a bit restless,” George says and Larissa smiles. I sit down, and Dylan sits next to me. Jorel and dad are at the mafia base right now and they are coming to get me in a little while so that we could dish some punishments to the bastard that ruined my life. “Good morning my boy, you look a lot healthier than some of the pictures I have seen of you recently,” mom says, and I get a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

“Morning mom, I feel a lot better than I have done for a long time,” I tell her, and she smiles at me. I am still getting used to calling her mom, but I am starting to like it more. I am so blessed to have this chance to have an actual family who cares about me. I know my mom who passed away cared about me, but I know my father who is still around somewhere never did and I didn’t exactly have a normal childhood. My mom put a plate of food on the table and I dug in straight away. It was one of the best meals that I had ever eaten. Mom is such a good cook and I wished I could have her meals more often. I think we are staying over there tonight and then we are going to spend a day relaxing at their base before continuing with our plan to deal with Aron.

“That’s good Danny. You know I am happy for you to call me mom, but only if you are comfortable with it and I don’t want to force you into it,” she tells me, and I nod at her. I was too busy enjoying her cooking to talk at that particular moment. “It’s good that Danny is comfortable mom, he knows that you don’t want to replace his mom and he still loves you as much as I do,” Larissa says, and I eagerly nod to show that I agreed with my sister. It was amazing to have siblings too, I was an only child when my mom was alive because the slave master didn’t want to have more children born because it was too risky even though he would get an endless supply of free slaves to raise and shape to his will. They would be less likely to disobey him too.

I did mention it too him one day and he said he would consider it. Then when I was about to be sold to Aron he told me that he had considered it and he was going to be implementing it when he had planned it out thoroughly enough. I think he wanted to have sex with the women, so they would be his kids and more likely to obey him because he is their dad and we have to do as our mom and dad tells us to do. “Yep, and he knows that I love him just as much as I love you and your siblings.” Mom says, and I had just finished my breakfast. “I love you too mom, thanks for cooking breakfast,” I tell her, and she smiles. Larissa decides that she was on washing up duty and I heard the front door open and close.

“That felt good, can’t wait for Danny to experience that,” I hear Jorel say. They are walking towards the kitchen now, but they probably had been talking the entire ride up here. “Yeah, if he feels comfortable enough doing it. Danny is quite a gentle soul and I would hate for him to feel pressured into doing anything he might not be comfortable with,” I hear dad say next and I saw both mom and Larissa smile at me. Jorel and dad would not be expecting me to be up and wandering around yet, so it will be a nice surprise for them. “Morning girls and Dylan,” Dad says, he hadn’t seen me yet. The three people he mentioned said good morning back. Then he saw me and had a big smile on his face.

I had been told by Jorel, Dylan and George that I looked really ill up until the morning after my surgery and I felt a whole lot better then too. I had fought the infection off now and all we had to do was clean the two wounds which run down my back where the skin graft was put on after all the infection had been removed. “Hello Danny, how are you feeling now?” he asks, and he very carefully picks me up, so I could have a hug with him. “Hello. I’m feeling fine now dad, just got some occasional pain when I first wake up where the stitches are but it’s okay,” I tell him. I wrap my arms around his neck and enjoy my cuddle with him. Then he passes me to Jorel and we have a hug before he put me back on the chair. I hadn’t realised that Dylan had taken my seat, so I was place down in his lap which I didn’t mind.

“If you two boys wait another few minutes then I will make you two some breakfast,” mom tells Jorel and my dad. Jorel and dad sit down on either side of Dylan and I instantly. I bet they were both quite hungry and this point. “Are you sure you are ready for today Danny?” Jorel asks me, I knew he was worried about me. I was not sure when I first got up this morning but now I am more awake, and I am comfortable then I feel fine enough to do it. “Yeah, I can get plenty of rest in between. I do feel a lot better than I have done for a long time,” I tell him, and he smiles. The infection had dragged on for a lot longer than it should have and after the surgery I did spent most of my time sleeping to get my energy back after the events of that day.

“Alright Danny, we are only looking out for you. We just want to make sure that you are safe, and you don’t suddenly collapse on us or anything,” Jorel says and I hug him again. He was one of the most worried about me. I didn’t react as well as I could have to the anaesthetic when I was waking up and I did stop breathing for a little while, but they brought me back. Jorel was in the room when it happened so, when I did come round he held me very tightly and I was a bit confused as to what was going on until George told me what had happened when they were waking me up the first time. “I don’t think Danny is going to be having issues with his breathing today Jorel. I think he is going to be fine once he has a baseball bat in his hands,” George says, and I chuckle.

“Danny will be fine today, I will make sure of it. I agree with you George, once he gets his hands on a baseball bat and Aron then everything is going to be fine,” dad tells me and the others. I am still not sure if I will give Aron an aggressive beatdown like Jorel is desperate to do. I do want Aron to feel the pain that he has put me through over the last 10 years of my life. “I want Johnny to put him in the dirt,” I hear Jorel mumble and I chuckled at him. He is so silly sometimes, it feels so weird to refer to George as Johnny 3 Tears but when we are out on missions we have to. I am just so used to calling him George though since I don’t go on many missions myself. I like being the tech guy that stays behind a lot of the time which is fine by the others. “Hey, where’s Jordon?” I ask, realising that I hadn’t seen him yet.

“He was down here earlier, he must be in his room,” Jorel replies and I carefully get off Dylan’s lap to make my way upstairs. I obviously told them I was going to check on him. I know he still misses Matt and some days it is harder than others for him to deal with that grief. I manage to make it from the kitchen upstairs just fine, although I started to cling onto the bannister rail for support just to make sure that I don’t fall down. I quickly find Jordon’s bedroom door and knock on it softly. “Who is it?” I hear Jordon ask. He did not sound like he was in a good mood right now. “It’s me, Danny,” I tell him, and he gets up and I hear him walk to the door and open it. He was crying, but he tried to stop when he sees me.

“Hello Danny, how are you?” he asks me, and I smile. I hug him first because I knew he needed that. “I am okay Jordon, how are you doing?” I ask him. He hugged me back and tried in vain to wipe his tears. He invites me into his room and closes the door. Then he goes and sits on the bed. He pulls his legs up and hugs them. “I’m doing awful to be honest with you Danny. I shouldn’t be missing him, he betrayed us, but I miss him all the same,” Jordon tells me, and I knew instantly who he was talking about. He was talking about Matt and I understood how he felt. “Its perfectly natural to be missing him Jordon. You were still in love with him when he died, you hoped that he wouldn’t betray us, and you can be happy together like you used to be,” I tell him. He hugs me tightly then seconds later I feel tears on my shirt.

Jordon is sobbing his heart out in my arms and I am more than willing to let him cry in front of me and to let all of his emotions out. I have been in his position and I still am sometimes when I get really upset over the fact that my mom passed away. I know how he feels and I know how much he appreciates having someone’s shoulder to cry on when he needs it. “It seems like you always know when I need you for this,” Jordon says, and I chuckle. It was true though, I have been there every time he has needed to cry. “It’s good that I know that though Jordon. Then I am easily able to come and give you the comfort you need,” I tell him, and he smiles at me. He is slowly but surely calming down now which is good.

I don’t know how long he has been keeping his emotions in, but it seems like it has been a while because just when I thought he had calmed down he sobbed again, and it was heart breaking. I am still willing to comfort him and to make sure that he knows that it is okay to cry in front of me. “Jordon, want to come with me and we can go visit Matt? Maybe giving him a final goodbye might help you,” I tell him. It might backfire on me but at least I offered him that opportunity and it might be worth while for him. He will get some peace in saying goodbye to Matt I can feel it deep down. “You will definitely come with me Danny? I want to say goodbye, but I am too scared to do it on my own,” Jordon tells me through his tears.

“Of course, I will come with you. I will be with you every step of the way Jordon I promise you,” I tell him, and he looks me in the eyes while he wipes away the last of his tears. I smile at him and he smiled back straight away. “I want you to take me to see Matt please Danny,” he tells me, and I nodded at him. Then I get up and hold my hand out for him to take. He takes it and I pull him up to his feet. “Be careful Danny, you’re still recovering from the surgery,” Jordon tells me. I felt fine and I told Jordon this. Then I went to get my phone, wallet and keys. I am desperate to drive now that I know how to and I am hoping that Jordon will let me. We also need to let the people downstairs know so I know how much time I have to do this with Jordon before I go to deal with Aron.

“I’m just going to take Jordon out for a little while. I will be back before we need to leave,” I tell Jorel and my dad who smiles at me. Dad came up and hugged me tightly. “Okay, just make sure that you two are safe out there. Even though I have Aron now, we don’t know if he hired anyone to try and harm you in the meantime,” he tells me, and I nod. I made sure that they were aware of where we planned to go so that if we were not back on time then they would know where to start looking for us, but we weren’t going to be gone for very long and I doubt that we are going to be taken by anyone or have anything done to us. “I’m going to drive okay Jordon? I will be fine I swear,” I tell him, and he chuckles.

“Okay Danny, I don’t feel like I am in a fit state to be driving to be honest with you,” he tells me, and we get into the car. I make the short drive to the cemetery where dad has said he buried Matt. Despite him being a traitor, he still deserved to be buried and what he did when he was good had to be acknowledged since the bad stuff was quite recent. “Are you sure you can do this?” I ask Jordon. He was shaking a bit and I reached out to take his hand in mine. It was nothing else but platonic, he knows my heart belongs to Dylan and his still belongs to Matt. “I’m sure I will be okay with you here Danny,” he tells me and squeezes my hand back. Then I get out of the car first, so I can be right there from the moment Jordon gets out of the car.

I take his arm and we walk through the cemetery through to where I have been told Matt has been buried. Jordon has a semi-tight grip on my arm, but I was quite happy for him to do that. He needs my support and I am going to be a good friend and be here for him. “Hey Matt,” I say, when we reach his tombstone. Hopefully this is going to help him with his grieving process since we never went to the funeral. Everyone was too hurt by his betrayal at the time. “Hey Matt,” Jordon says, and he lets go of my arm, so he could go up to the grave and talk a little more privately. I had the flowers Larissa gave me in my hands. When we are about to leave I am going to place them down. I just let him have his privacy with Matt for as long as he needs to.

I felt Jordon squeeze my shoulder when he was done, and I went and talked to Matt for a minute before placing the flowers down and offering my arm out to Jordon for support. “Thank you Danny. I feel better now,” he tells me, and I could tell from his tone of voice that he did sound a lot happier. I was glad that I was able to provide him with some help and support when he needed it most. “You’re welcome Jordon. I just wanted to help you in the same way you helped me when I was grieving for my mom,” I tell him, and we pause so that we can have a hug. We did this when I was really missing my mom a few months ago. “I know you do Danny. You are too good for this world sometimes,” Jordon says.

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2 days later ~ Danny p.o.v

“Be careful Danny, I don’t want him hurting you,” Dylan tells me, we are going to dad’s base again today and Aron is not going to be alive by the end of the visit. Last time I went to dad’s base and gave Aron a beat down he kicked me right where he knew it would knock me down. “I’ll be careful Dylan. He’s not going to be alive long enough to hurt me,” I tell him. Jorel and dad are going to make sure that there is no possible way that Aron will be able to do what he did last time to me. I hug Dylan and he hugs me back tightly. He is going to be worrying about me until I come home later I know he will and nothing I can say or do is going to reassure him that everything is going to be fine. I suppose I can keep him updated with text messages throughout the day.

“Danny is going to be just fine Dylan. Everything has been planned out by both boys meticulously over the last few weeks and they have prepared for every eventually and have a method of dealing with it,” dad tells Dylan, in the hopes that it would reassure Dylan a little more and he would feel more comfortable in letting me go and do this. Our relationship is so strong, and I loved how much Dylan cared for me. “Okay, it doesn’t mean that I am going to stop worrying about him though,” Dylan says, and I give him another hug for good measure. He looks at me and wraps his arms around my waist and taps my back to some random tune he heard. “No one is forcing you to not worry babe. We just want to reassure you that I am going to be perfectly fine,” I tell him.

“I know Danny. I just feel nervous about not being with you especially after what happened the last time you were around Aron,” Dylan tells me. Dad decided for safety reasons that only Jorel and I were going to go today despite the fact that the other three desperately want to kill Aron when they get their hands on him. Dad says that he is planning on letting the guys have at him once he is dead and we are going to dispose of him afterwards. I am sure that they will love the opportunity to tear Aron apart because of what he has done to everyone. “You, George and Jordon will be able to dish your punishments on Aron soon enough. I just felt that Danny and Jorel were the ones that should do the killing part,” dad tells him.

“We don’t have any issues with that. Danny and Jorel deserve this much,” George says as he makes his appearance. His little bit of hair was sticking up in a few different directions and he definitely looked like he had only just woken up. “Morning George, you’re right the two boys need this today,” dad tells him. I was still in Dylan’s arm, he was hesitant to let me go at that particular moment. I yawned a little bit since I hadn’t fully woken up myself yet and by the time I get there I should be fine. “Morning Miles, morning Danny and Dylan,” George says, and he goes to make his coffee. He can’t function during the day without at least one cup of coffee. “Morning George, Dylan is very reluctant to let me leave this morning though,” I tell him, and he turns around to us.

“I can see that Danny bear, he knows you are going to be fine and we will join you in a few hours anyway,” George says, and it manages to get Dylan to loosen his grip a little bit. Now that Dylan knows that I am going to be fine and he will be joining me in a few hours after I leave with Jorel and dad to complete our job for the morning. “Okay, I will see you later Danny boo,” Dylan tells me, and I stand on my tiptoes to kiss him before I leave. He pulls me up, so I am being held by him. He lets me kiss him on the lips and he kisses me back straight away. “I love you Dylan, I will be fine,” I tell him, and he puts me down. “I love you too Danny, I will see you in a little bit,” he tells me, and I walk over to dad, so we can leave to his base.

Jorel was already waiting at the door with dad’s keys in his hands. “Dylan finally let you go then?” Jorel asks and I nod at him. “Yeah, he is nervous about it, but he knows that I am going to be seeing him soon and nothing is going to go wrong,” I tell him, and he smiles. Since my kidnapping everyone has been a little more nervous when I went out. They were fine when I went with Jordon to the cemetery a couple of days ago. They were happy that I had helped Jordon out through his grief and that I was there for him when he was making that big step towards getting over his grief with Matt. He is never going to forget his first love but at least he says he is almost ready to move on with his life now and maybe find someone new, like Jorel has done.

“So, how are you and Vanessa doing?” I ask Jorel as we head to the garage. He recently started dating Vanessa like I had suggested once Jorel had gotten over his relationship with Jess. He has been so much happier since their relationship ended I felt sorry for both of them. “We are doing good thanks Danny, she doesn’t know about the mafia bit yet. I am planning to wait until it is worth arranging the family dinner, so she can meet you and our siblings as well as mom and dad. I am worried that she might dump me because of it but it will prove that our relationship is real then,” Jorel explains, he kinda butchered the explanation but I had a rough idea of what he was talking about. Vanessa will need to know the truth about Jorel’s life in order to decide if she will continue the relationship.

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8 pm

“So fucking glad we are rid of that bastard,” George announces when we pile into the minivan that will be taking us home. I was left a little shaken up by the day’s events, but I was told that it was natural considering that was the first time I had ever killed someone in my life. I was aggressive to the slave masters I had, but I had never killed them. Jorel was always in front of Aron as dad watched on. we wanted to make sure that he fucking knew who was going to kill him. “I have to say Danny, you have done really well in the circumstances,” dad says, and I smile. Now our threat is neutralised he feels comfortable enough to be the one driving us home. “Dad’s right, you did amazing considering you know it is the first time you have killed anyone,” Jorel says.

Dylan was sitting next to me and had a tight grip on my hand. Aron tried to hurt me but Jorel made sure he couldn’t lay a finger on me again. “Uh, thanks I guess,” I tell them. I wasn’t really sure what reaction was appropriate right now. We are going to celebrate either tonight or tomorrow that the bane of our existence is dead. “You’re going to feel a bit weird for a while Danny. It’s natural after what you have experienced. Everyone in this minivan has gone through the same,” dad says when he sees my face in the rear-view mirror. Of course, he was going to know exactly what I was feeling without me telling him. He has dealt with new recruits for the last god knows how many years and part of the initiation process was to do this.

Soon we are home and Jorel encouraged me to try and eat something even if I felt like I didn’t want to. It is important to try and carry on as normal and we decided to have a small celebration tonight and a bigger one when everyone is feeling up to it. By small celebration we meant a couple of beers with some pizza while we watched a movie together. “You’ll be okay Danny. I know it’s a lot to get used to, but you have done amazingly well for the first time you have done something like this,” Dylan tells me and kisses the top of my head. I agreed to eat a few slices of pizza, I didn’t feel sick at that moment. I only wanted one beer though, I don’t really like drinking and I don’t have a taste for a lot of drinks yet.

Later that night I am snuggling up with Dylan in bed and I was drifting off into a peaceful sleep while Dylan was drawing patterns in my back. “Goodnight Danny, I love you so much,” he tells me, and he kisses me on the lips. I kiss him back, so thankful that he is mine and I have him in my time of need. “Goodnight Dylan, I love you to the moon and back,” I tell him, and I close my eyes. Soon drifting off to sleep.

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And that is the end of this story I hope you enjoyed.


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